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THE SIN - EATER
By the Same Author
Pharals: A Romance of the Isles. (Frank
Murray, Derby.)
The Mountain Lovers. [KeytwtesSeries.]
(John Lane.)
IN PREPARATION
The Washer of the Ford: And other
Legendary Moralities.
Merlin: A Romance.
The Sin-Eater
And other Tales
By FIONA MACLEOD
Author of " Pharais " and
"The Mountain Lovers"
1 ^ '
PATRICK GEDDES k COLLEAGUES
THE LAWNMARKET, EDINBURGH
STONE & KIMBALL, CHICAGO
Ss
Copyrighted in United States.
All rights reserved.
Oct. jSgj.
ZTo
GEORGE MEREDITH
IN GRATITUDE AND HOMAGE
AND BECAUSE HE IS
PRINCE OF CELTDOM
LYRIC RUNES
Rune of the Tide-Faring . {" The Ninth Wave'')
Rutie of the Black Seal . {^^ The Judgment o' God")
The Rune o/Cormac and Eilidh (" The Harping of Cravetheen ")
The Burden of the Tide . (" The Dannan-Ron ")
Tilt Rune of M anus MacCodrum {Do.)
Wave, Wave, Green Branches (" The Daughter of the Sun ")
Aiona (Do,)
The Two lans
Shule Agrah .
Mo lennav-a-chree
Lennavan-nio
Birdeen, Birdeen .
The Son? of fsla to Eilidh
{Do.)
(Do.)
(" The Birdeen")
{Do.)
{Do.)
("Silko' ihe Kine")
CONTENTS
PACB
Prologue (^From lona) i
I
The Sin-Eater 17
The Ninth Wave 68
The Judgment o' God 84
II
The Harping of Cravetheen . . . . ioj
III
Tragic Landscapes —
I. The Tempest . . . . .129
II. Mist 137
III. Summer-sleep ...... 140
IV
The Anointed Man 147
The Dan-nan-Ron 156
Green Branches 207
V
The Daughter of the Sun .... 237
The BiRDEEN 267
Silk o' the Kine 284
FROM lONA
To George Meredith
Here, where the sound of the falling wave is faintly
to be heard, and rather as in the spiral chamber of
a shell than in the windy open, I write these few
dedicatory words. I am alone here, betwixt sea
and sky : for there is no other living thing for the
seeing, on this bouldered height of Diln-I, except a
single blue shadow that dreams slowly athwart the
hillside. The bleating of lambs and ewes, the lowing
of kine, these come up from the viachar that lies
between the west slopes and the shoreless sea to
the west, these ascend as the very smoke of sound.
All round the island there is a continuous breath-
ing— deeper and more prolonged on the west,
where the sea-heart is ; but audible everywhere.
This moment the seals on Soa are putting their
breasts against the running tide ; for I see a flashing
of fins here and there in patches at the north end
of the Sound ; and already from the ruddy granite
A
2 FROM lONA
shores of the Ross there is a congregation of sea-
fowl, — gannets and guillemots, skuas and herring-
gulls, the long-necked northern-diver, the tern, the
cormorant. In this sun-flood the waters of the Sound
dance their blue bodies and swirl their flashing white
hair o' foam ; and, as I look, they seem to me like
children of the wind and the sunshine, leaping and
running in these sun-gold pastures, with a laughter
as sweet against the ears as the voices of children
at play.
The joy of life vibrates everywhere. Yet the
Weaver doth not sleep, but only dreams. He loves
the sun-drowned shadows. They are invisible thus,
but they are there, in the sunlight itself. Sure,
they may be heard ; as, an hour ago, when on my
way hither by the Stairway of the Kings — for so
sometimes they call here the ancient stones of the
mouldered princes of long-ago — I heard a mother
moaning because of the son that had had to go
over-sea and leave her in her old age ; and heard
also a child sobbing because of the sorrow of child-
hood, that sorrow so mysterious, so unfathomable,
so for ever incommunicable.
To the little one I spoke. But all she would
say, looking up through dark, tear-wet eyes already
filled with the shadow of the burden of woman,
was : Ha mee duvdchiis.
i
FROM I ON A 3
Tha mi Dubhachas ! ... "I have the gloom."
Ah, that saying ! How often I have heard it in
the remote Isles! "The Gloom." It is not grief,
nor any common sorrow, nor that dee[) despond-
ency of weariness that comes of accomplished things,
too soon, too literally fulfilled. But it is akin
to each of these, and involves each. It is rather
the unconscious knowledge of the lamentation of
a race, the unknowing surety of an inheritance of
woe.
On the lips of the children of what people, save
in the last despoiled sanctuaries of the Gael, could
be heard these all too significant sayings : Tha mi
DtibhachaSy " I have the gloom " ; Ma tha sin an
Dan, " If that be ordained ; If it be Destiny " ?
Never shall I forget the lisping of this phrase —
common from The Seven Hunters, that are the
extreme of the Hebrid Isles, to the Rhinns of Islay,
and from the Ord of Sutherland to the Mull of
Cantyre — never shall I forget the lisping of this
phrase in the mouth of a little birdikin of a lass,
not more than three years old, — a phrase caught,
no doubt, as the jay catches the storm-note of the
missel-thrush, but not the less significant, not the
less piteous ; Ma tha s\n an Dan, " If it be
Destiny."
This is so. And yet, not a stone's-throw from
4 FROM lONA
where I lie, half hidden beneath an overhanging
rock, is a Pool of Healing. To this small black-
brown tarn pilgrims of every generation, for hun-
dreds upon hundreds of years, have come. SoHtary,
these : not only because the pilgrim to the Fount of
Eternal Youth — which, as all Gaeldom knows, is
beneath this tarn on D(in-I of lona — must fare hither
alone, and at dawn, so as to touch the healing water
the moment the first sunray quickens it — but soli-
tary, also, because those who go in quest of this
Fount of Youth are the dreamers and the Children
of Dream, and these are not many, and few come
to this lonely place. Yet, an Isle of Dream, lona
is, indeed. Here the last sun-worshippers bowed
before the Rising of God ; here Columba and his
hymning priests laboured and brooded; and here
Oran dreamed beneath the monkish cowl that pagan
dream of his. Here, too, the eyes of Fionn and
Oisin, and of many another of the heroic men and
women of the Fianna, lingered often ; here the Pict
and the Celt bowed beneath the yoke of the Norse
pirate, who, too, left his dreams, or rather his
strangely beautiful soul-rainbows, as a heritage to
the stricken ; here, for century after century, the
Gael has lived, suffered, joyed, dreamed his impos-
sible beautiful dream ; as here, now, he still lives,
still suffers patiently, still dreams, and, through all
FROM I ON A 5
and over all, broods deep against the mystery of
things. He is an elemental, among the elemental
forces. They have the voices of wind and sea ; he
has these words of the soul of the Celtic race :
Tha mi Diibluuhixs . . . J\/a tha s)n an Dan. It
is because the Fount of Youth that is upon Diln-I
of lona is not the only Wellspring of Peace that
the Gael can front "an Diln" as he does, and can
endure his " Dubhachas." Who knows where its
tributaries are? They may be in your heart, or in
mine, and in a myriad others.
I would that the birds of Angus Ogue might,
for once, be changed, not into the kisses of love,
but into doves of peace; that they might fly forth
into the green world, and be nested there awhile,
crooning their incommunicable song that would yet
bring joy and hope.
^Vhy, you may think, do I write these things?
It is because I wish to say to you, and to all who
may read this book, that in what I have said lies
the Secret of the Gael. The Beauty of the World,
the Pathos of Life, the gloom, the fatalism, the
spiritual glamour : it is out of these, the heritance
of the Gael, that I have wrought these tales.
Well I know that they do not give "a rounded
and complete portrait of the Celt." It is more
6 FROM lONA
than likely that I could not do so if I tried, but
I have not tried; not even to give "a rounded and
complete portrait " of the Gael, who is to the Celtic
race what the Franco-Breton is to the French, a
creature not without blitheness and humour, laughter-
loving, indolent, steadfast, gentle, fierce, but above
all attuned to elemental passions, to the poetry of
nature, and wrought in every nerve and fibre by
the gloom and mystery of his environment.
Elsewhere I may give such delineation as I can,
and is within my own knowledge, of the many-
sidedness of the Celt, and even of the insular Gael.
But in this book, as in "Pharais" and "The
Mountain Lovers," I give the life of the Gael in
what is, to me, in accord with my own observation
and experience, its most poignant characteristics —
that is, of course, in certain circumstances, in a par-
ticular environment. Almost needless to say, I do
not present such mere sport of Destiny as Neil
Ross, the Sin-Eater, or Neil MacCodrum ("The
Dan-nan-Ron"), as typical Gaels, any more than I
would have Gloom Achanna, whose sombre person-
ality colours the three tales of the fourth section,
accepted as typical of the perverted Celt. They are
true in their degree — that is all. But I do aver that
Alison Achanna, the Anointed Man; and the fisher-
men of lona of whom I speak ; and Ian Mbr of the
FROMIONA 7
Hills ; and others akin to these — are typical. This,
obviously, may be said without affirming that they are
" rounded and complete " types of the Gaelic Celt.
Of course they are nothing of the kind. This also
may be said : that they are not typical to the exclusion
of other types. Could Ian Mot be common any-
where? Are there so many poet-dreamers? Could
Ethlenn Stuart or Eilidh Mclan be met with in each
strath, on every hillside? Is the beautiful and one
inevitable phrase to be found on any lips ? All
men speak of love ; but only you have said the
supreme thing of the passion of love — namely, that
Passion is noble strength on fire. You only have
said this. It is individually characteristic ; it is
racially typical ; and yet a thousand poets have come
and gone, a million million hearts have beat to this
chord, and the phrase has waited, isolate, for you.
Is it, therefore, not indicative ? Whether with
phrase, or the lilt of a free music, or with man —
there should be no saying that he or it does not
exist, because invisible through the dust of the
common highway.
It must not be forgotten that "the Celtic Fringe"
is of divers colours. The Armorican, the Cymric,
the Gael of Ireland, and the Scottish Gael, are of
the same stock, but are not the same people. Even
the crofter of Donegal or the fisherman of Clare is
8 FROM lONA
no more than an older or younger brother of the
Hebridean or the Highlander : certainly they are
not twins, of an indistinguishable likeness. Some
of my critics, heedless of the complex conditions
which differentiate the Irish and the Scottish Celt,
complain of the Celtic gloom that dusks the life of
the men and women I have tried to draw. That
may be just. I wish merely to say that I have
not striven to depict the blither Irish Celt. I have
sought mainly to express something of what I have
seen as paramount, something of " the Celtic Gloom "
which, to many Gaels if not to all, is so distinctive
in the remote life of a doomed and passing race.
Possibly, though of course it is unlikely they should
write save out of fulness of knowledge, those of my
critics to whom I allude have dwelt for years among
these distant isles, intimate with the speech and
mind and daily life and veiled secretive inner nature
of the men and women who inhabit them. I cannot
judge, for I do not profess to know every glen in
the Highlands, or to have set foot on every one of
the Thousand Isles.
A doomed and passing race. Yes, but not wholly
so. The Celt has at last reached his horizon. There
is no shore beyond. He knows it. This has been
the burden of his song since Malvina led the blind
FROM I ON A 9
Oisin to his grave by the sea. " Even the Children
of Light must go down into darkness." But this
apparition of a passing race is no more than the
fulfilment of a glorious resurrection before our very
eyes. For the genius of the Celtic race stands out
now with averted torch, and the light of it is a
glory before the eyes, and the flame of it is blown
into the hearts, of the mightier conquering people.
The Celt falls, but his spirit rises in the heart and
the brain of the Anglo-Celtic peoples, with whom
are the destinies of the generations to come.
Well, this is a far cry, from one small voice on
the hill-slope of Dlin-I of lona to the clarion-call
of the future ! But, sure, even in this Isle of Joy,
as it seems to-day in this dazzle of golden light and
splashing wave, there is all the gloom and all the
mystery which lived in the minds of the old seers
and bards. Yonder, where that thin spray quivers
against the thyme-set cliff, is the Spouting Cave,
where to this day the Mar-Tarbh, dread creature
of the sea, swims at the full of the tide. Beyond,
out of sight behind these heights, is Port-na-Churaich,
where, a thousand years ago, Columba landed in his
coracle. Here, eastward, is the landing-place for the
dead of old, brought hence out of Christendom for
sacred burial in the Isle of the Saints. All the
lo FROMIONA
story of Albyn is here. lona is the microcosm of
Gaeldom.
Last night, about the hour of the sun's going,
I lay upon the heights near the Cave, overlooking
the Machar — the sandy, rock-frontiered plain of dune-
land on the west side of lona, exposed to the
Atlantic. There was neither man nor beast, no
living thing to see, save one solitary human creature.
This brown, bent, aged man toiled at kelp-burning.
I watched the smoke till it merged into the sea-
mist that came creeping swiftly out of the north,
and down from Dtin-I eastward. At last nothing
was visible. The mist shrouded everything. I could
hear the dull rhythmic beat of the waves. That
was all. No sound, nothing visible.
It was, or seemed, a long while before a rapid
thud-thud trampled the heavy air. Then I heard
the rush, the stamping and neighing, of some young
mares, pasturing there, as they raced to and fro,
bewildered, or mayhap only in play. A glimpse
I caught of three, with flying manes and tails; the
others were blurred shadows only. A swirl, and
the mist disclosed them; a swirl, and the mist
enfolded them again. Then, silence once more.
All at once, though not for a long time thereafter,
the mist rose and drifted seaward.
Everything was as before. The Kelp-Burner still
FROM lONA II
stood, straking the smouldering sea-weed. Above
him a column ascended, bluely spiral, dusked with
gloom of shadow.
The Kelp-Burner : who is he but the Gael of the
Isles ? Who but the Celt in his sorrow ? The mist
falls and the mist rises. He is there all the same,
behind it, part of it : and the column of smoke is
the incense out of his longing heart, that desires
Heaven and Earth and is dowered only with poverty
and pain, hunger and weariness, a little isle of the
seas, a great hope, and the love of love.
In that mist I had dreamed a dream. When I
woke, these strange unfamiliar words were upon my
lips : — Am Dia beo, an Domhan hasacha', an
DiOMHAIR CiNNE'-DaONNA.
Am Dia beo, an Domhan basacha', an Diomhair
Cinne'-Daonna : the Living God, the dying World,
and the mysterious Race of Men.
I know not what obscure and remote ancestral
memory rose, there, to the surface ; but I imagined
for a moment that the spirit of the race, and not
a solitary human being, found utterance in this so
typical saying. It is the sense of an abiding spiritual
Presence, of a waning, a perishing World, and of
the mystery a'nd incommunicable destiny of Man,
which distinguish the ethical life of the Celt.
12 FROM lONA
"The Three Powers," I murmured, as I rose to
leave the place where I was; "these are the three
Powers — the Living God, the evanescent World, and
Man. And, somewhere, in the darkness, — ' an Dan,
Destiny.' "
Yes, Ma tha sin an Dan : that is where we come
to again. It is Destiny, then, that is the Protagonist
in the Celtic Drama — the most moving, the most
poignant of all that make up the too tragic Tragi-
comedy of human life. And it is Destiny, that
sombre Demogorgon of the Gael, whose boding
breath, whose menace, whose shadow, glooms so
much of the remote life I know, and hence glooms
also this book of interpretations : for pages of life
must either be interpretative or merely documentary,
and these following pages have for the most part
been written as by one who repeats, with curious
insistence, a haunting, familiar, yet ever wild and
remote air, whose obscure meanings he would fain
reiterate, interpret.
You, of all living writers, can best understand
this ; for in you the Celtic genius burns a pure
flame. True, the Cymric blood that is in you
moves to a more lightsome measure than that of
the Scottish Gael, and the accidents of temperament
and life have combined to make you a writer for
F R O M I O N A 13
great peoples rather than for a people. But though
England appropriate you as her son, and all the
Anglo-Celtic peoples are the heritors of your genius,
we claim your brain. Now, we are a scattered
band. The I>rcton's eyes are slowly turning from
the sea, and slowly his ears are forgetting the
whisper of the wind around Menhir and Dolmen.
The Cornishman has lost his language, and there
is now no bond between him and his ancient kin.
The Manxman has ever been the mere yeoman of
the Celtic chivalry ; but even his rude dialect
perishes year by year. In Wales, a great tradition
survives ; in Ireland, a supreme tradition fades
through sunset-hued horizons to the edge o' dark ;
in Celtic Scotland, a passionate regret, a despairing
love and longing, narrows yearly before a bastard
utilitarianism which is almost as great a curse to
our despoiled land as Calvinistic theology has been
and is.
But with you, and others not less enthusiastic if
less brilliant, we need not despair. "The English-
man may trample down the heather," say the shep-
herds of Argyll, "but he cannot trample down the
wind."
I
THE SIN-EATER
THE NINTH WAVE
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
THE SI NEATER
Sin.
Taste this bread, this substance : tell me
Is it bread or flesh ?
[The Senses approach. '\
The Smell.
Its smell
Is the smell of bread.
Sin.
Touch, come. W^hy tremble?
Say what^s this thou touchest?
The Touch.
Bread.
Sin.
Si^^ht, declare what thou discernest
In this object.
The Sight.
Bread alone.
Calderon,
Los Encantos de la Culpa.
A WET wind out of the south mazed and
mooned through the sea-mist that hung over
the Ross, In all the bays and creeks was
a continuous weary lapping of water. There
was no other sound anywhere.
B >7
i8 THE SIN-EATER
Thus was it at daybreak : it was thus at
noon : thus was it now in the darkening of
the day. A confused thrusting and falling
of sounds through the silence betokened the
hour of the setting. Curlews wailed in the
mist : on the seething limpet - covered rocks
the skuas and terns screamed, or uttered
hoarse, rasping cries. Ever and again the
prolonged note of the oyster-catcher shrilled
against the air, as an echo flying blindly
along a blank wall of cliff. Out of weedy
places, wherein the tide sobbed with long,
gurgling moans, came at interv^als the barking
of a seal.
Inland, by the hamlet of ContulHch, there
is a reedy tarn called the Loch-a-chaoruinn.*
By the shores of this mournful water a man
moved. It was a slow, weary walk that of
the man Neil Ross. He had come from
Duninch, thirty miles to the eastward, and had
not rested foot, nor eaten, nor had word of
man or woman, since his going west an hour
after dawn.
At the bend of the loch nearest the clachan
* ContulHch: i.e. Ceann-nan-tulaich, "the end of the hillocks."
Loch-a-chaoruinn means the loch of the rowan-trees.
THE SIN-EATER 19
he came upon an old woman carrying peat.
To his reiterated question as to where he
was, and if the tarn were Feur-Lochan above
Fionnaphort that is on the strait of lona on
the west side of the Ross of Mull, she did
not at first make any answer. The rain
trickled down her withered brown face, over
which the thin grey locks hung limply. It
was only in the deep -set eyes that the flame
of life still glimmered, though that dimly.
The man had used the English when first
he spoke, but as though mechanically. Sup-
posing that he had not been understood, he
repeated his question in the Gaelic.
After a minute's silence the old woman
answered him in the native tongue, but only
to put a question in return.
" I am thinking it is a long time since you
have been in lona ? "
The man stirred uneasily.
" And why is that, mother ? " he asked, in
a weak voice hoarse with damp and fatigue ;
"how is it you w^ill be knowing that I have
been in lona at all ? "
"Because I knew your kith and kin there,
Neil Ross."
20 THE SIN-EATER
" I have not been hearing that name, mother,
for many a long year. And as for the old
face o' you, it is unbeknown to me."
" I was at the naming of you, for all
that. Well do I remember the day that Silis
Macallum gave you birth ; and I was at the
house on the croft of Ballyrona when Murtagh
Ross — that was your father — laughed. It was
an ill laughing that."
" I am knowing it. The curse of God on
him ! "
"Tis not the first, nor the last, though the
grass is on his head three years agone now."
" You that know who I am will be know-
incf that I have no kith or kin now on
lona?"
" Ay ; they are all under grey stone or
running wave. Donald your brother, and
Murtagh your next brother, and little Silis,
and your mother Silis herself, and your two
brothers of your father, Angus and Ian
Macallum, and your father Murtagh Ross,
and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and
his sister Anna — one and all, they lie be-
neath the green wave or in the brown mould.
It is said there is a curse upon all who live
THE SIN - EATER 21
at Ballyrona. The owl buikls now in the
rafters, and it is the big sea-rat that runs
across the fireless hearth."
"It is there I am going."
" The foolishness is on you, Neil Ross."
" Now it is that I am knowing who you
are. It is old Sheen Macarthur I am speak-
ing to."
" Tha viise ... it is I."
" And you will be alone now, too, I am
thinking. Sheen ? "
" I am alone. God took my three boys at
the one fishing ten years ago ; and before
there was moonrise in the blackness of my
heart my man went. It was after the drown-
ing of Anndra that my croft was taken from
me. Then I crossed the Sound, and shared
with my widow sister Elsie McVurie : till she
went : and then the two cows had to go :
and I had no rent : and was old."
In the silence that followed, the rain dribbled
from the sodden bracken and dripping lone-
roid. Big tears rolled slowly down the deep
lines on the face of Sheen. Once there was
a sob in her throat, but she put her shaking
hand to it, and it was still.
22 THE SIN-EATER
Neil Ross shifted from foot to foot. The
ooze in that marshy place squelched with
each restless movement he made. Beyond
them a plover wheeled, a blurred splatch
in the mist, crying its mournful cry over
and over and over.
It was a pitiful thing to hear : ah, bitter
loneliness, bitter patience of poor old women.
That he knew well. But he was too weary,
and his heart was nigh full of its own
burthen. The words could not come to his
lips. But at last he spoke.
"Tha mo chridhe goirt," he said, with tears
in his voice, as he put his hand on her bent
shoulder ; " my heart is sore."
She put up her old face against his.
" 'S tha e ruidhinn mo chridhe," she whis-
pered ; " it is touching my heart you are."
After that they walked on slowly through
the dripping mist, each dumb and brooding
deep.
"Where will you be staying this night?"
asked Sheen suddenly, when they had tra-
versed a wide boggy stretch of land ; adding,
as by an afterthought — "Ah, it is asking you
were if the tarn there were Feur - Lochan.
T H E S I N - E A T E R 23
No ; it is Loch-a-chaoruinn, and the clachan
that is near is ContuUich."
"Which way?"
" Yonder : to the right."
" And you are not going there ? "
" No. I am going to the steading of
Andrew Blair. Maybe you are for knowing it ?
It is called le-Baile-na-Chlais-nambuidheag."*
" I do not remember. But it is remember-
ing a Blair I am. He was Adam, the son
of Adam, the son of Robert. He and my
father did many an ill deed together."
" Ay, to the stones be it said. Sure, now,
there was, even till this weary day, no man
or woman who had a good word for Adam
Blair."
"And why that . . . why till this day?"
" It is not yet the third hour since he went
into the silence."
Neil Ross uttered a sound like a stifled
curse. For a time he trudged wearily on.
" Then I am too late," he said at last, but
as though speaking to himself. " I had hoped
to see him face to face again, and curse him
between the' eyes. It was he who made
* The farm in the hollow of the yellow flowers.
24 THE SIN-EATER
Murtagh Ross break his troth to my mother,
and marry that other woman, barren at that,
God be praised ! And they say ill of him,
do they?"
" Ay, it is evil that is upon him. This
crime and that, God knows ; and the shadow
of murder on his brow and in his eyes. Well,
well, 'tis ill to be speaking of a man in
corpse, and that near by. 'Tis Himself only
that knows, Neil Ross."
" Maybe ay and maybe no. But where is
it that I can be sleeping this night. Sheen
Macarthur ? "
" They will not be taking a stranger at the
farm this night of the nights, I am thinking.
There is no place else for seven miles yet,
when there is the clachan, before you will be
coming to Fionnaphort. There is the warm
byre, Neil, my man ; or, if you can bide by
my peats, you may rest, and welcome, though
there is no bed for you, and no food either
save some of the porridge that is over."
"And that will do well enough for me,
Sheen ; and Himself bless you for it."
And so it was.
THE SIN- EATER 25
After old Sheen Macarthur had given the
wayfarer food — poor food at that, but welcome
to one nigh starved, and for the heartsome
way it was given, and because of the thanks
to God that was upon it before even spoon
was Hfted — she told him a lie. It was the
good lie of tender love.
" Sure now, after all, Neil, my man," she
said, " it is sleeping at the farm I ought to
be, for Maisie Macdonald, the wise woman,
will be sitting by the corpse, and there will
be none to keep her company. It is there
I must be going ; and if I am weary, there is
a good bed for me just beyond the dead-board,
which I am not minding at all. So, if it is
tired you are sitting by the peats, lie down on
my bed there, and have the sleep ; and God
be with you."
With that she went, and soundlessly, for
Neil Ross was already asleep, where he sat
on an upturned claar, with his elbows on his
knees, and his flame-lit face in his hands.
The rain had ceased ; but the mist still
hung over the land, though in thin veils now,
and these slowly drifting seaward. Sheen
stepped wearily along the stony path that
26 THE SIN - EATER
led from her bothy to the farm-house. She
stood still once, the fear upon her, for she
saw three or four blurred yellow gleams mov-
ing beyond her, eastward, along the dyke.
She knew what they were — the corpse-lights
that on the night of death go between the
bier and the place of burial. More than once
she had seen them before the last hour, and
by that token had known the end to be near.
Good Catholic that she was, she crossed her-
self, and took heart. Then, muttering
Crois nan naoi aingeal learn
'O mhullach mo chinn
Qu craican mo hhonn
(The cross of the nine angels be about me,
From the top of my head
To the soles of my feet),
she went on her way fearlessly.
When she came to the White House, she
entered by the milk-shed that was between
the byre and the kitchen. At the end of it
was a paved place, with washing-tubs. At
one of these stood a girl that served in the
house, — an ignorant lass called Jessie McFall,
out of Oban. She was ignorant, indeed, not
to know that to wash clothes with a newly
THE SIN-EATER 27
dead body near by was an ill thing to do.
Was it not a matter for the knowing that the
corpse could hear, and might rise up in the
night and clothe itself in a clean white shroud ?
She was still speaking to the lassie when
Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watchcr, opened
the door of the room behind the kitchen to
see who it was that was come. The two old
women nodded silently. It was not till Sheen
was in the closed room, midway in which
something covered with a sheet lay on a
board, that any word was spoken.
" Duit sith m6r, Beann Macdonald."
" And deep peace to you, too. Sheen ; and
to him that is there."
" Och, ochone, mise 'n diugh ; 'tis a dark
hour this."
"Ay; it is bad. Will you have been hear-
ing or seeing anything ? "
" Well, as for that, I am thinking I saw
lights moving betwixt here and the green place
over there."
" The corpse-lights ? "
"Well, it is calling them that they are."
" I thought they would be out. And I have
been hearing the noise of the planks — the
28 THE SIN-EATER
cracking of the boards, you know, that will
be used for the coffin to-morrow."
A long silence followed. The old women
had seated themselves by the corpse, their
cloaks over their heads. The room was fire-
less, and was lit only by a tall wax death-
candle, kept against the hour of the going.
At last Sheen began swaying slowly to and
fro, crooning low the while. " I would not be
for doing that, Sheen Macarthur," said the deid-
watcher in a low voice, but meaningly ; adding,
after a moment's pause, " The mice have all
left the house"
Sheen sat upright, a look half of terror half
of awe in her eyes.
" God save the sinful soul that is hiding,"
she whispered.
Well she knew what Maisie meant. If the
soul of the dead be a lost soul it knows its
doom. The house of death is the house of
sanctuary ; but before the dawn that follows the
death-night the soul must go forth, whosoever
or whatsoever wait for it in the homeless,
shelterless plains of air around and beyond.
If it be well with the soul, it need have no
fear : if it be not ill with the soul, it may
THE SIN-EATER 29
fare forth with surety ; but if it be ill with
the soul, ill will the going be. Thus is it
that the spirit of an evil man cannot stay,
and yet dare not go ; and so it strives to
hide itself in secret places anywhere, in dark
channels and blind walls ; and the wise
creatures that live near man smell the terror,
and flee. Maisie repeated the saying of Sheen ;
then, after a silence, added —
" Adam Blair will not lie in his grave for a
year and a day because of the sins that are
upon him ; and it is knowing that, they are,
here. He will be the Watcher of the Dead
for a year and a day."
" Ay, sure, there will be dark prints in the
dawn-dew over yonder."
Once more the old women relapsed into
silence. Through the night there was a sigh-
ing sound. It was not the sea, which was too
far off to be heard save in a day of storm.
The wind it was, that was dragging itself
across the sodden moors like a wounded thing,
moaning and sighing.
Out of sheer weariness. Sheen twice rocked
forward from her stool, heavy with sleep. At
last Maisie led her over to the niche-bed
30 THE SIN-EATER
opposite, and laid her down there, and waited
till the deep furrows in the face relaxed some-
what, and the thin breath laboured slow across
the fallen jaw.
" Poor old woman," she muttered, heedless
of her own grey hairs and greyer years ; " a
bitter, bad thing it is to be old, old and weary.
'Tis the sorrow, that. God keep the pain of it!"
As for herself, she did not sleep at all that
night, but sat between the living and the dead,
with her plaid shrouding her. Once, when
Sheen gave a low, terrified scream in her sleep,
she rose, and in a loud voice cried, " Sheeach-ad !
Away with you !" And with that she lifted
the shroud from the dead man, and took the
pennies off the eyelids, and lifted each lid ;
then, staring into these filmed wells, muttered
an ancient incantation that would compel the
soul of Adam Blair to leave the spirit of Sheen
alone, and return to the cold corpse that was
its coffin till the wood was ready.
The dawn came at last. Sheen slept, and
Adam Blair slept a deeper sleep, and Maisie
stared out of her wan, weary eyes against the
red and stormy flares of light that came into
the sky.
THE SIN - EATER 31
When, an hour after sunrise, Sheen Macarthur
reached her bothy, she found Neil Ross, heavy
with slumber, upon her bed. The fire was not
out, though no flame or spark was visible ; but
she stooped and blew at the heart of the peats
till the redness came, and once it came it grew.
Having done this, she kneeled and said a rune
of the morning, and after that a prayer, and
then a prayer for the poor man Neil. She
could pray no more because of the tears. She
rose and put the meal and water into the pot
for the porridge to be ready against his awak-
ing. One of the hens that was there came and
pecked at her ragged skirt. " Poor beastie,"
she said. " Sure, that will just be the way
I am pulling at the white robe of the Mother
o' God. 'Tis a bit meal for you, cluckie, and
for me a healing hand upon my tears. O, och,
ochone, the tears, the tears ! "
It was not till the third hour after sunrise
of that bleak day in the winter of the winters,
that Neil Ross stirred and arose. He ate in
silence. Once he said that he smelt the snow
coming out of the north. Sheen said no word
at all.
After the porridge, he took his pipe, but
32 THE SIN-EATER
there was no tobacco. All that Sheen had
was the pipeful she kept against the gloom
of the Sabbath. It was her one solace in the
long weary week. She gave him this, and held
a burning peat to his mouth, and hungered
over the thin, rank smoke that curled upward.
It was within half-an-hour of noon that, after
an absence, she returned.
" Not between you and me, Neil Ross," she
began abruptly, "but just for the asking, and
what is beyond. Is it any money you are
having upon you ? "
" No."
"Nothing?"
" Nothing."
"Then how will you be getting across to
lona? It is seven long miles to Fionnaphort,
and bitter cold at that, and you will be
needing food, and then the ferry, the ferry
across the Sound, you know."
"Ay, I know."
" What would you do for a silver piece, Neil,
my man?"
" You have none to give me. Sheen Mac-
arthur ; and, if you had, it would not be
taking it I would."
THE SIN-EATER 33
" Would you kiss a dead man for a crown-
piece — a crown-piece of five good shillings?"
Neil Ross stared. Then he sprang to his feet.
" It is Adam Blair you are meaning, woman!
God curse him in death now that he is no
longer in life ! "
Then, shaking and trembling, he sat down
again, and brooded against the dull red glow
of the peats.
But, when he rose, in the last quarter before
noon, his face was white.
" The dead are dead. Sheen Macarthun They
can know or do nothing. I will do it. It is
willed. Yes, I am going up to the house
there. And now I am going from here. God
Himself has my thanks to you, and my bless-
ing too. They will come back to you. It
is not forgetting you I will be. Good-bye."
" Good-bye, Neil, son of the woman that was
my friend. A south wind to you ! Go up by
the farm. In the front of the house you will
see what you will be seeing. Maisie Macdon-
ald will be there. She will tell you what 's for
the telling. There is no harm in it, sure : sure,
the dead are dead. It is praying for you I will
be, Neil Ross. Peace to you ! "
C
34 THE SIN-EATER
"And to you, Sheen."
And with that the man went.
When Neil Ross reached the byres of the
farm in the wide hollow, he saw two figures
standing as though awaiting him, but separ-
ate, and unseen of the other. In front of the
house was a man he knew to be Andrew
Blair ; behind the milk-shed was a woman he
guessed to be Maisie Macdonald.
It was the woman he came upon first.
"Are you the friend of Sheen Macarthur?"
she asked in a whisper, as she beckoned him
to the doorway.
"I am."
" I am knowing no names or anything. And
no one here will know|; you, I am thinking. So
do the thing and begone."
"There is no harm to it?"
" None."
" It will be a thing often done, is it not ? "
"Ay, sure."
" And the evil does not abide ? "
" No. The . . . the . . . person . . . the person
takes them away, and . . ."
''Them?'*
THE SIN-EATER 35
" For sure, man ! Them . . . the sins of the
corpse. He takes them away ; and are you for
thinking God would let the innocent suffer for
the guilty? No . . . the person . . . the Sin-
Eater, you know , . . takes them away on him-
self, and one by one the air of heaven washes
them away till he, the Sin-Eater, is clean and
whole as before."
"But if it is a man you hate ... if it is a
corpse that is the corpse of one who has been
a curse and a foe ... if ... "
"Ss^/ Be still now with your foolishness.
It is only an idle saying, I am thinking. Do
it, and take the money and go. It will be
hell enough for Adam Blair, miser as he was,
if he is for knowing that five good shillings
of his money are to go to a passing tramp
because of an old, ancient silly tale."
Neil Ross laughed low at that. It was for
pleasure to him.
" Hush wi' ye ! Andrew Blair is waiting
round there. Say that I have sent you round,
as I have neither bite nor bit to give."
Turning on his heel, Neil walked slowly
round to the front of the house. A tall man
was there, gaunt and brown, with hairless face
36 THE SIN-EATER
and lank brown hair, but with eyes cold and
grey as the sea.
"Good day to you, an' good faring. Will
you be passing this way to anywhere ? "
" Health to you. I am a stranger here. It is
on my way to lona I am. But I have the hunger
upon me. There is not a brown bit in my
pocket. I asked at the door there, near the byres.
The woman told me she could give me nothing
— not a penny even, worse luck, — nor, for that,
a drink of warm milk. 'Tis a sore land this."
"You have the Gaelic of the Isles. Is it
from lona you are?"
" It is from the Isles of the West I come."
" From Tiree ? . . . from Coll ? "
" No."
" From the Long Island ... or from Uist . . .
or maybe from Benbecula?"
" No."
" Oh well, sure it is no matter to me. But
may I be asking your name?"
" Macallum."
"Do you know there is a death here, Mac-
allum ? "
" If I didn't, I would know it now, because
of what lies yonder."
THE SIN-EATER 37
Mechanically Andrew Blair looked round.
As he knew, a rough bier was there, that was
made of a dead-board laid upon three milking-
stools. Beside it was a claar, a small tub to
hold potatoes. On the bier was a corpse,
covered with a canvas sheeting that looked
like a sail.
" He was a worthy man, my father," began
the son of the dead man, slowly ; " but he had
his faults, like all of us. I might even be
saying that he had his sins, to the Stones be
it said. You will be knowing, Macallum, what
is thought among the folk . . . that a stranger,
passing by, may take away the sins of the
dead, and that, too, without any hurt what-
ever . . . any hurt whatever."
"Ay, sure."
" And you will be knowing what is done ? "
" Ay."
" With the bread . . . and the water . . . ? "
" Ay."
" It is a small thing to do. It is a Christian
thing. I would be doing it myself, and that
gladly, but the . . . the . . . passer-by who . . .*'
"It is talking of the Sin-Eater you are?"
" Yes, yes, for sure. The Sin-Eater as he is
38 THE SIN -EATER
called — and a good Christian act it is, for all that
the ministers and the priests make a frowning at
it — the Sin-Eater must be a stranger. He must
be a stranger, and should know nothing of the
dead man — above all, bear him no grudge."
At that Neil Ross's eyes lightened for a
moment.
"And why that?"
"Who knows? I have heard this, and I
have heard that. If the Sin-Eater was hating
the dead man he could take the sins and
fling them into the sea, and they would be
changed into demons of the air that would
harry the flying soul till Judgment-Day."
" And how would that thing be done ? "
The man spoke with flashing eyes and
parted lips, the breath coming swift. Andrew
Blair looked at him suspiciously; and hesitated,
before, in a cold voice, he spoke again.
"That is all folly, I am thinking, Macallum.
Maybe it is all folly, the whole of it. But, see
here, I have no time to be talking with you. If
you will take the bread and the water you shall
have a good meal if you want it, and . . . and
. . . yes, look you, my man, I will be giving
you a shilling too, for luck."
T H E S I N - E A T E R 59
" I will have no meal in this house, Anndra-
rnhic-Adam ; nor will I do this thing unless
you will be giving me two silver half-crowns.
That is the sum I must have, or no other."
" Two half-crowns ! Why, man, for one half-
crown ..."
"Then be eating the sins o' your father
yourself, Andrew Blair! It is going I am."
" Stop, man ! Stop, Macallum. See here :
I will be giving you what you ask."
" So be it. Is the . . . Are you ready ? "
" Ay, come this way."
With that the two men turned and moved
slowly towards the bier.
In the doorway of the house stood a man
and two women ; farther in, a woman ; and
at the window to the left, the serving-wench,
Jessie McFall, and two men of the farm. Of
those in the doorway, the man was Peter, the
half-witted youngest brother of Andrew Blair ;
the taller and older woman was Catreen, the
widow of Adam, the second brother ; and the
thin, slight- woman, with staring eyes and
drooping mouth, was Muireall, the wife of
Andrew. The old woman behind these was
Maisie Macdonald.
4<5 THE SIN-EATER
Andrew Blair stooped and took a saucer
out of the claar. This he put upon the
covered breast of the corpse. He stooped
again, and brought forth a thick square piece
of new-made bread. That also he placed upon
the breast of the corpse. Then he stooped
again, and with that he emptied a spoonful
of salt alongside the bread.
" I must see the corpse,"^ said Neil Ross
simply.
" It is not needful, Macallum."
" I must be seeing the corpse, I tell you —
and for that, too, the bread and the water
should be on the naked breast."
" No, no, man ; it . . . "
But here a voice, that of Maisie the wise
woman, came upon them, saying that the man
was right, and that the eating of the sins
should be done in that way and no other.
With an ill grace the son of the dead man
drew back the sheeting. Beneath it, the corpse
was in a clean white shirt, a death-gown long
ago prepared, that covered him from his neck
to his feet, and left only the dusky yellowish
face exposed.
While Andrew Blair unfastened the shirt
THE SIN-EATER 41
and placed the saucer and the bread and the
salt on the breast, the man beside him stood
staring fixedly on the frozen features of the
corpse. The new laird had to speak to him
twice before he heard.
" I am ready. And you, now ? What is it
you are muttering over against the lips of the
dead ? "
" It is giving him a message I am. There
is no harm in that, sure?"
" Keep to your own folk, Macallum. You
are from the West you say, and we are from
the North. There can be no messages between
you and a Blair of Strathmore, no messages
for you to be giving."
" He that lies here knows well the man to
whom I am sending a message" — and at this
response Andrew Blair scowled darkly. He
would fain have sent the man about his
business, but he feared he might get no other.
" It is thinking I am that you are not a
Macallum at all. I know all of that name in
Mull, lona, Skye, and the near isles. What
will the name of your naming be, and of your
father, and of his place ? "
Whether he really wanted an answer, or
42 THE SIN-EATER
whether he sought only to divert the man
from his procrastination, his question had a
satisfactory result.
"Well, now, it's ready I am, Anndra-mhic-
Adam."
With that, Andrew Blair stooped once more
and from the claar brought a small jug of
water. From this he filled the saucer.
"You know what to say and what to do,
Macallum."
There was not one there who did not have
a shortened breath because of the mystery
that was now before them, and the fearfulness
of it. Neil Ross drew himself up, erect, stiff,
with white, drawn face. All who waited, save
Andrew Blair, thought that the moving of his
lips was because of the prayer that was
slipping upon them, like the last lapsing of
the ebb-tide. But Blair was watching him
closely, and knew that it was no prayer which
stole out against the blank air that was
around the dead.
Slowly Neil Ross extended his right arm.
He took a pinch of the salt and put it in the
saucer, then took another pinch and sprinkled
it upon the bread. His hand shook for a
THE SIN-EATER 43
moment as he touched the saucer. But there
was no shaking as he raised it towards his
h*ps, or when he held it before him when he
spoke.
"With this water that has salt in it, and
has lain on thy corpse, O Adam mhic Anndra
mhrc Adam M6r, I drink away all the evil
that is upon thee ..."
There was throbbing silence while he paused.
"... And may it be upon me and not
upon thee, if with this water it cannot flow
away."
Thereupon, he raised the saucer and passed
it thrice round the head of the corpse sun-
ways ; and, having done this, lifted it to his
lips and drank as much as his mouth would
hold. Thereafter he poured the remnant over
his left hand, and let it trickle to the ground.
Then he took the piece of bread. Thrice, too,
he passed it round the head of the corpse
sun-ways.
He turned and looked at the man by his
side, then at the others, who watched him
with beating hearts.
With a loud clear voice he took the sins.
" Thoir dhomh do ciontachd, 0 Adam mhic
44 THE SIN-EATER
Anndra rnhic Adam Mbr ! Give me thy sins
to take away from thee ! Lo, now, as I stand
here, I break this bread that has lain on thee
in corpse, and I am eating it, I am, and in
that eating I take upon me the sins of thee,
O man that was alive and is now white with
the stillness ! "
Thereupon Neil Ross broke the bread and
ate of it, and took upon himself the sins of
Adam Blair that was dead. It was a bitter
swallowing, that. The remainder of the bread
he crumbled in his hand, and threw it on the
ground, and trod upon it. Andrew Blair gave
a sigh of relief. His cold eyes lightened with
malice.
" Be off with you, now, Macallum. We are
wanting no tramps at the farm here, and
perhaps you had better not be trying to get
work this side lona ; for it is known as
the Sin -Eater you will be, and that won't be
for the helping, I am thinking ! There : there
are the two half-crowns for you . . . and may
they bring you no harm, you that are Scape-
goat now ! "
The Sin-Eater turned at that, and stared
like a hill-bull. Scapegoat! Ay, that's what
THE SIN-EATER 45
he was. Sin-Eater, Scapegoat ! Was he not,
too, another Judas, to have sold for silver
that which was not for the selling? No, no,
for sure Maisie Macdonald could tell him the
rune that would serve for the easing of this
burden. He would soon be quit of it.
Slowly he took the money, turned it over,
and put it in his pocket.
" I am going, Andrew Blair," he said quietly,
" I am going now. I will not say to him
that is there in the silence, A chuid do Pharas
da! — nor will I say to you, Gu^n gleidheadh
Dia thu, — nor will I say to this dwelling
that is the home of thee and thine, Gu'n
beannaicheadh Dia an tigh ! " *
Here there was a pause. All listened.
Andrew Blair shifted uneasily, the furtive eyes
of him going this way and that, like a ferret
in the grass.
" But, Andrew Blair, I will say this : when
you fare abroad, Droch caoidh ort! and when
you go upon the water, Gaoth gun direadh
ort! Ay, ay, Anndra-mhic-Adam, Dia ad
* {\) A chuid do Pharas da! " His share of heaven be his."
(2) Gu^n gleidheadh Dia thu, "May God preser\'e you." (3)
Gu^n beannaicheadh Dia an tigh! "God's blessing on this
house."
46 THE SIN-EATER
aghaidh 's ad aodann . . . agus has dunach
ort ! Dhonas 's dholas ort, agus leat-sa ! " *
The bitterness of these words was like snow
in June upon all there. They stood amazed.
None spoke. No one moved.
Neil Ross turned upon his heel, and, with
a bright light in his eyes, walked away from
the dead and the living. He went by the
byres, whence he had come. Andrew Blair
remained where he was, now glooming at the
corpse, now biting his nails and staring at the
damp sods at his feet.
When Neil reached the end of the milk-
shed he saw Maisie Macdonald there, waiting.
" These were ill sayings of yours, Neil Ross,"
she said in a lov/ voice, so that she might not
be overheard from the house.
" So, it is knowing me you are."
" Sheen Macarthur told me."
" I have good cause."
"That is a true word. I know it."
* (l) Droch caoidh ort 1 "May a fatal accident happen to
you" (//■/. "bad moan on you"). (2) Gaoth gun direadh ort t
" May you drift to your drowning " {lit. "wind without direc-
tion on you"). (3) Dia ad aghaidh, etc., "God against thee
and in thy face . . . and may a death of woe be yours. . . .
Evil and sorrow to thee and thine ! "
THE SIN-EATER 47
" Tell me this thing. What is the rune that
is said for the throwing into the sea of the
sins of the dead ? See here, Maisie Mac-
donald. There is no money of that man that
I would carry a mile with me. Here it is.
It is yours, if you will tell me that rune."
Maisie took the money hesitatingly. Then,
stooping, she said slowly the few lines of the
old, old rune.
" Will you be remembering that ? "
"It is not forgetting it I will be, Maisie."
"Wait a moment. There is some warm
milk here."
With that she w^ent, and then, from within,
beckoned to him to enter.
" There is no one here, Neil Ross. Drink
the milk."
He drank ; and while he did so she drew a
leather pouch from some hidden place in her dress.
" And now I have this to give you."
She counted out ten pennies and two
farthings.
" It is all the coppers I have. You are
welcome to them. Take them, friend of my
friend. They will give you the food you need,
and the ferry across the Sound."
48 THE SIN-EATER
" I will do that, Maisie Macdonald, and
thanks to you. It is not forgetting it I will
be, nor you, good woman. And now, tell me,
is it safe that I am? He called me a
' scapegoat ' ; he, Andrew Blair ! Can evil
touch me between this and the sea?"
" You must go to the place where the evil
was done to you and yours — and that, I
know, is on the west side of lona. Go, and
God preserve you. But here, too, is a sian
that will be for the safety."
Thereupon, with swift mutterings she said
this charm : an old, familiar Sian against
Sudden Harm : —
" Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,
Sian ro' marbhadh, sian ro' lot ort,
Sian eadar a' chlioch 's a' ghlun,
Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,
O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort :
Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,
Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,
Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,
Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,
Sian seachd eadar a coig ort
Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,
Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh
narach ort, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud 's bho
mhi-thapadh ! "
T H E S I N - E /\ T E R 49
Scarcely had she finished before she heard
heavy steps approaching.
" Away with you," she whispered, repeating
in a loud, angry tone, " Away with you !
Seachad ! Scachad ! "
And with that Neil Ross slipped from the
milk -shed and crossed the yard, and was be-
hind the byres before Andrew Blair, with sullen
mien and swift, wild eyes, strode from the house.
It was w'ith a grim smile on his face that
Neil tramped down the wet heather till he
reached the high road, and fared thence as
through a marsh because of the rains there
had been.
For the first mile he thought of the angry
mind of the dead man, bitter at paying of
the silver. For the second mile he thought of
the evil that had been wrought for him and
his. For the third mile he pondered over all
that he had heard and done and taken upon
him that day.
Then he sat down upon a broken granite
heap by the way, and brooded deep till one
hour went, and then another, and the third
was upon him.
A man driving two calves came towards
D
50 THE SIN-EATER
him out of the west. He did not hear or
see. The man stopped : spoke again. Neil
gave no answer. The drover shrugged his
shoulders, hesitated, and walked slowly on,
often looking back.
An hour later a shepherd came by the way
he himself had tramped. He was a tall, gaunt
man with a squint. The small, pale -blue
eyes glittered out of a mass of red hair that
almost covered his face. He stood still,
opposite Neil, and leaned on his cromak.
" Latha math leaf" he said at last : " I wish
you good day."
Neil glanced at him, but did not speak.
"What is your name, for I seem to know
you ? "
But Neil had already forgotten him. The
shepherd took out his snuff-mull, helped him-
self, and handed the mull to the lonely way-
farer. Neil mechanically helped himself.
''Am bheil thu 'dol do Fhionphort?" tried
the shepherd again : " Are you going to
Fionnaphort ? "
'' Tha mise 'dol a dli I - challu^n - chille"
Neil answered, in a low, weary voice, and as
a man adream : " I am on my way to lona."
THE SIN-EATER 51
" I am thinking I know now who you are.
You are the man Macallum."
Neil looked, but did not speak. His eyes
dreamed against what the other could not
see or know. The shepherd called angrily
to his dogs to keep the sheep from stray-
ing ; then, with a resentful air, turned to his
victim.
"You are a silent man for sure, you are.
I 'm hoping it is not the curse upon you
already."
"What curse?"
"Ah, that has brought the wind against the
mist ! I was thinking so ! "
"What curse?"
"You are the man that was the Sin -Eater
over there ? "
"Ay."
"The man Macallum?"
" Ay."
"Strange it is, but three days ago I saw
you in Tobermory, and heard you give your
name as Neil Ross to an lona man that was
there."
"Well?"
" Oh, sure, it is nothing to me. But they
52 THE SIN-EATER
say the Sin-Eater should not be a man with
a hidden lump in his pack." *
"Why?"
" For the dead know, and are content.
There is no shaking off any sins, then — for
that man."
"It is a lie."
" Maybe ay and maybe no."
"Well, have you more to be saying to
me? I am obliged to you for your com-
pany, but it is not needing it I am, though
no offence."
" Och, man, there 's no offence between you
and me. Sure, there 's lona in me, too ; for
the father of my father married a woman that
was the granddaughter of Tomais Macdonald,
who was a fisherman there. No, no ; it is
rather warning you I would be."
"And for what?"
" Well, well, just because of that laugh I
heard about."
"What laugh?"
" The laugh of Adam Blair that is dead."
Neil Ross stared, his eyes large and wild.
He leaned a little forward. No word came
* i.e. With a criminal secret, or an undiscovered crime.
THE SIN -EATER 53
from him. The look that was on his face
was the question.
"Yes: it was this way. Sure, the telh'ng
of it is just as I heard it. After you ate the
sins of Adam Blair, the people there brought
out the coffin. When they were putting him
into it, he was as stiff as a sheep dead in
the snow — and just like that, too, with his
eyes wide open. Well, someone saw you
trampling the heather down the slope that
is in front of the house, and said, ' It is the
Sin-Eater ! ' With that, Andrew Blair sneered,
and said — ' Ay, 'tis the scapegoat he is ! ' Then,
after a while, he went on : ' The Sin - Eater
they call him : ay, just so : and a bitter good
bargain it is, too, if all 's true that 's thought
true ! ' And with that he laughed, and then
his wife that was behind him laughed, and
then . . ."
" Well, what then ? "
"Well, 'tis Himself that hears and knows
if it is true ! But this is the thing I was
told : — After that laughing there was a still-
ness and a dread. For all there saw that
the corpse had turned its head and was
looking after you as you went down the
54 THE SIN-EATER
heather. Then, Neil Ross, if that be your
true name, Adam Blair that was dead put
up his white face against the sky, and
laughed."
At this, Ross sprang to his feet with a
gasping sob.
" It is a lie, that thing ! " he cried, shaking
his fist at the shepherd. " It is a lie ! "
" It is no lie. And by the same token,
Andrew Blair shrank back white and shaking,
and his woman had the swoon upon her, and
who knows but the corpse might have com.e
to life again had it not been for Maisie
Macdonald, the deid-watcher, who clapped a
handful of salt on his eyes, and tilted the
coffin so that the bottom of it slid forward,
and so let the whole fall flat on the ground,
with Adam Blair in it sideways, and as likely
as not cursing and groaning, as his wont was,
for the hurt both to his old bones and his old
ancient dignity."
Ross glared at the man as though the mad-
ness was upon him. Fear and horror and fierce
rage swung him now this way and now that.
" What will the name of you be, shepherd ? "
he stuttered huskily.
THE SIN - EATER 55
" It is Eachainn Gilleasbuig I am to our-
selves ; and the English of that for those who
have no Gaeh'c is Hector Gillespie ; and I am
Eachainn mac Ian mac Alasdair of Strath-
sheean that is where Sutherland lies against
Ross."
" Then take this thing — and that is, the
curse of the Sin-Eater! And a bitter bad
thing may it be upon you and yours."
And with that Neil the Sin-Eater flung his
hand up into the air, and then leaped past the
shepherd, and a minute later was running
through the frightened sheep, with his head
low, and a white foam on his lips, and his
eyes red with blood as a seal's that has the
death-wound on it.
On the third day of the seventh month
from that day, Aulay Macneill, coming into
Balliemore of lona from the west side of the
island, said to old Ronald MacCormick, that
was the father of his wife, that he had seen
Neil Ross again, and that he was "absent" —
for though he had spoken to him, Neil would
not answer, but only gloomed at him from the
wet weedy rock where he sat.
56 THE SIN-EATER
The going back of the man had loosed every
tongue that was in lona. When, too, it was
known that he was wrought in some terrible
way, if not actually mad, the islanders whis-
pered that it was because of the sins of Adam
Blair. Seldom or never now did they speak
of him by his name, but simply as " The Sin-
Eater." The thing was not so rare as to
cause this strangeness, nor did many (and
perhaps none did) think that the sins of the
dead ever might or could abide with the living
who had merely done a good Christian charit-
able thing. But there was a reason.
Not long after Neil Ross had come again
to lona, and had settled down in the ruined
roofless house on the croft of Ballyrona, just
like a fox or a wild-cat, as the saying was,
he was given fishing-work to do by Aulay
Macneill, who lived at Ard-an-teine, at the
rocky north end of the machar or plain that
is on the west Atlantic coast of the island.
One moonlit night, either the seventh or
the ninth after the earthing of Adam Blair
at his own place in the Ross, Aulay Macneill
saw Neil Ross steal out of the shadow of
Ballyrona and make for the sea. Macneill
THE SIN-EATER 57
was there by the rocks, mending a lobster-
creel. He had gone there because of the
sadness. Well, when he saw the Sin-Eater,
he watched.
Neil crept from rock to rock till he reached
the last fang that churns the sea into yeast
when the tide sucks the land just opposite.
Then he called out something that Aulay
Macneill could not catch. With that he
springs up, and throws his arms above him.
" Then," says Aulay when he tells the tale,
" it was like a ghost he was. The moonshine
was on his face like the curl o' a wave.
White ! there is no whiteness like that of the
human face. It was whiter than the foam
about the skerry it was ; whiter than the moon
shining ; whiter than well, as white as
the painted letters on the black boards of
the fishing-cobles. There he stood, for all
that the sea was about him, the slip-slop
waves leapin' wild, and the tide making, too,
at that. He was shaking like a sail two
points off the wind. It was then that, all of
a sudden, he called in a womany, screamin'
voice —
" ' I am throwincr the sins of Adam Blair
58 THE SIN-EATER
into the midst of ye, white dogs o' the sea!
Drown them, tear them, drag them away out
into the black deeps! Ay, ay, ay, ye dancin'
wild waves, this is the third time I am doing
it, and now there is none left ; no, not a sin,
not a sin !
"*0-hi, 0-ri, dark tide o' the sea,
I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee !
By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man's sins set me free, set me free !
Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,
Set us free ! Set us free ! '
"Ay, sure, the Sin-Eater sang that over
and over ; and after the third singing he
swung his arms and screamed —
"'And listen to me, black waters an' running tide.
That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise.
And I am Neil the son of Silis Macallum
By the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,
That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him ! '
And with that he scrambled and fell into
the sea. But, as I am Aulay mac Luais
and no other, he was up in a moment, an'
swimmin' like a seal, and then over the rocks
again, an' away back to that lonely roofless
place once more, laughing wild at times, an'
muttering an' whispering."
THE SIN-EATER 59
It was this tale of Aulay Macneill's that
stood between Neil Ross and the isle - folk.
There was something behind all that, they
whispered one to another.
So it was always the Sin-Eater he was
called at last. None sought him. The few
children who came upon him now and again
fled at his approach, or at the very sight of
him. Only Aulay Macneill saw him at times,
and had word of him.
After a month had gone by, all knew that
the Sin-Eater was wrought to madness because
of this awful thing : the burden of Adam
Blair's sins would not go from him ! Night
and day he could hear them laughing low, it
was said.
But it was the quiet madness. He went to
and fro like a shadow in the grass, and almost
as soundless as that, and as voiceless. More
and more the name of him grew as a terror.
There were few folk on that wild west coast
of lona, and these few avoided him when the
word ran that he had knowledge of strange
things, and converse, too, with the secrets of
the sea.
One day Aulay Macneill, in his boat, but
6o THE SIN -EATER
dumb with amaze and terror for him, saw him
at high tide swimming on a long rolling wave
right into the hollow of the Spouting Cave.
In the memory of man, no one had done this
and escaped one of three things : a snatching
away into oblivion, a strangled death, or mad-
ness. The islanders know that there swims
into the cave, at full tide, a Mar-Tarbh, a
dreadful creature of the sea that some call a
kelpie ; only it is not a kelpie, which is like
a woman, but rather is a sea-bull, offspring of
the cattle that are never seen. Ill indeed for
any sheep or goat, ay, or even dog or child,
if any happens to be leaning over the edge of
the Spouting Cave when the Mar-tarv roars :
for, of a surety, it will fall in and straightway
be devoured.
With awe and trembling Aulay listened for
the screaming of the doomed man. It was
full tide, and the sea-beast would be there.
The minutes passed, and no sign. Only the
hollow booming of the sea, as it moved like a
baffled blind giant round the cavern-bases :
only the rush and spray of the water flung
up the narrow shaft high into the windy air
above the cliff it penetrates.
THE SIN -EATER 6i
At last he saw what looked h"kc a mass of
seaweed swirled out on the surge. It was the
Sin-Eater, With a leap, Aulay was at his
oars. The boat swung through the sea. Just
before Neil Ross was about to sink for the
second time, he caught him and dragged him
into the boat.
But then, as ever after, nothing was to be
got out of the Sin-Eater save a single saying:
Tha e lanihan fuar : Tha e lamJian fuar ! —
" It has a cold, cold hand ! "
The telling of this and other tales left none
free upon the island to look upon the " scape-
goat " save as one accursed.
It was in the third month that a new phase
of his madness came upon Neil Ross.
The horror of the sea and the passion for
the sea came over him at the same happening.
Oftentimes he would race along the shore,
screaming wild names to it, now hot with hate
and loathing, now as the pleading of a man
with the woman of his love. And strange
chants to it, too, were upon his lips. Old,
old lines of forgotten runes were overheard by
Aulay Macneill, and not Aulay only : lines
wherein the ancient sea-name of the island,
62 THE SIN-EATER
loua, that was given to it long before it was
called lona, or any other of the nine names
that are said to belong to it, occurred again
and again.
The flowing tide it was that wrought him
thus. At the ebb he would wander across
the weedy slabs or among the rocks : silent,
and more like a lost duinshee than a man.
Then again after three months a change in
his madness came. None knew what it was,
though Aulay said that the man moaned and
moaned because of the awful burden he bore.
No drowning seas for the sins that could not
be washed away, no grave for the live sins
that would be quick till the day of the Judg-
ment!
For weeks thereafter he disappeared. As
to where he was, it is not for the knowing.
Then at last came that third day of the
seventh month when, as I have said, Aulay
Macneill told old Ronald MacCormick that he
had seen the Sin-Eater again.
It was only a half-truth that he told, though.
For, after he had seen Neil Ross upon the
rock, he had followed him when he rose, and
wandered back to the roofless place which he
I
THE SIN-EATER 6^
haunted now as of yore. Less wretched a
shelter now it was, because of the summer
that was come, though a cold, wet summer at
that.
" Is that you, Neil Ross ? " he had asked, as
he peered into the shadows among the ruins
of the house.
" That 's not my name," said the Sin-Eater ;
and he seemed as strange then and there, as
though he were a castaway from a foreign
ship.
"And what will it be, then, you that are
my friend, and sure knowing me as Aulay
mac Luais — Aulay Macneill that never grudges
you bit or sup ? "
" / am Judasy
" And at that word," says Aulay Macneill,
when he tells the tale, " at that word the
pulse in my heart was like a bat in a shut
room. But after a bit I took up the talk,
"'Indeed,' I said; 'and I was not for know-
ing that. May I be so bold as to ask whose
son, and of what place ? '
" But all he said to me was, ' / am Judas!
" Well, I said, to comfort him, ' Sure, it 's
64 THE SIN-EATER
not such a bad name in itself, though I am
knowing some which have a moie home-Hke
sound.' But no, it was no good.
" ' I am Judas. And because I sold the Son
of God for five pieces of silver . . .'
"But here I interrupted him and said, —
' Sure, now, Neil — I mean, Judas — it was eight
times five.' Yet the simpleness of his sorrow
prevailed, and I listened with the wet in my
eyes.
" ' I am Judas. And because I sold the
Son of God for five silver shillings. He laid
upon me all the nameless black sins of the
world. And that is why I am bearing them
till the Day of Days.' "
And this was the end of the Sin - Eater ;
for I will not tell the long story of Aulay
Macneill, that gets longer and longer every
winter : but only the unchanging close of it.
I will tell it in the words of Aulay.
" A bitter, wild day it was, that day I saw
him to see him no more. It was late. The
sea was red with the flamin' light that burned
up the air betwixt lona and all that is west
THE SIN-EATER 65
of West. I was on the shore, looking at the
sea. The big green waves came in like the
chariots in the Holy Book. Well, it was on
the black shoulder of one of them, just short
of the ton o' foam that swept above it, that
I saw a spar surgin' by.
•"What is that?' I said to myself And
the reason of my wondering was this : I saw
that a smaller spar was swung across it. And
while I was watching that thing another great
billow came in with a roar, and hurled the
double spar back, and not so far from me
but I might have gripped it. But who would
have gripped that thing if he were for seeing
what I saw?
" It is Himself knows that what I say is a
true thing.
" On that spar was Neil Ross, the Sin-Eater.
Naked he was as the day he was born. And
he was lashed, too — ay, sure, he was lashed
to it by ropes round and round his legs and
his waist and his left arm. It was the Cross
he was on. I saw that thing with the fear
upon me. Ah, poor drifting wreck that he
was! Judas on the Cross: It was his eric!
" But even as I watched, shaking in my
E
eS THE SIN -EATER
limbs, I saw that there was life in him still.
The lips were moving, and his right arm was
ever for swinging this way and that. 'Twas
like an oar, working him off a lee shore : ay,
that was what I thought.
"Then, all at once, he caught sight of me.
Well he knew me, poor man, that has his
share of heaven now, I am thinking !
" He waved, and called, but the hearing
could not be, because of a big surge o' water
that came tumbling down upon him. In the
stroke of an oar he was swept close by the
rocks where I was standing. In that floun-
derin', seethin' whirlpool I saw the white face
of him for a moment, an' as he went out on
the re-surge like a hauled net, I heard these
words fallin' against my ears, —
^^^An eirig ifHanama ... In ransom for
my soul ! '
"And with that I saw the double-spar turn
over and slide down the back - sweep of a
drowning big wave. Ay, sure, it went out
to the deep sea swift enough then. It was
in the big eddy that rushes between Skerry-
Mor and Skerry - Beag. I did not see it
again — no, not for the quarter of an hour,
THE SIN-EATER 67
I am thinking. Then I saw just the whirh'ng
top of it rising out of the flying yeast of a
great, black -blustering wave, that was rushing
northward before the current that is called the
Black-Eddy.
"With that you have the end of Neil Ross:
ay, sure, him that was called the Sin-Eater.
And that is a true thing ; and may God save
us the sorrow of sorrows.
"And that is all."
THE NINTH WAVE
The wind fell as we crossed the Sound.
There was only one oar in the boat, and we
lay idly adrift. The tide was still on the ebb,
and so we made way for Soa ; though, well
before the island could be reached, the tide
would turn, and the sea -wind would stir, and
we be up the Sound and at Balliemore again
almost as quick as the laying of a net.
As we — and by " us " I am meaning Phadric
Macrae and Ivor McLean, fishermen of lona,
and myself beside Ivor at the helm — as we
slid slowly past the ragged islet known as
Eilean-na-h' Aon-Chaorach, torn and rent by
the tides and surges of a thousand years, I
saw a school of seals basking in the sun.
One by one slithered into the water, and
I could note the dark forms, like moving
patches of sea-weed, drifting in the green
underglooms.
Then, after a time, we bore down upon
68
THE NINTH WAVE 69
Sgeir-na-Oir, a barren rock. Three great cor-
morants stood watching us. Their necks shone
in the sunh'ght like snakes mailed in blue
and green. On the upper ledges were eight
or ten northern -divers. They did not seem
to see us, though I knew that their fierce
light -blue eyes noted every motion we made.
The small sea-ducks bobbed up and down,
first one flirt of a little black-feathered rump,
then another, then a third, till a score or so
were under water, and half-a-hundred more
were ready at a moment's notice to follow
suit. A skua hopped among the sputtering
weed, and screamed disconsolately at intervals.
Among the myriad colonies of close - set
mussels, which gave a blue bloom like that
of the sloe to the weed-covered boulders, a
few kittiwakes and dotterels flitted to and fro.
High overhead, white against the blue as a
cloudlet, a gannet hung motionless, seemingly
frozen to the sky.
Below the lapse of the boat the water was
pale green. I could see the Hath and
saith fanning their fins in slow flight, and
sometimes a little scurrying cloud of tiny
flukies and inch-long codling. For two or
70 THE NINTH WAVE
three fathoms beyond the boat the waters
were blue. If blueness can be alive and have
its own life and movement, it must be happy
on these western seas, where it dreams into
shadowy Lethes of amethyst and deep, dark
oblivions of violet.
Suddenly a streak of silver ran for a
moment along the sea to starboard. It was
like an arrow of moonlight shot along the
surface of the blue and gold. Almost imme-
diately afterward, a stertorous sigh was audible.
A black knife cut the flow of the water : the
shoulder of a pollack.
"The mackerel are coming in from the sea,"
said Macrae. He leaned forward, wet the palm
of his hand, and held it seaward. " Ay, the
tide has turned "
" Ohrone — achree — an — Sruth-mara !
0 krone — achree — an — Lionadh ! "
he droned monotonously, over and over, with
few variations.
" An' it's Oh an' Oh for the tides o' the sea,
An' it's Oh for the flowing tide,"
I sang at last in mockery.
"Come, Phadric," I cried, "you are as bad
THE NINTH WAVE 71
as Peter McAlpin's lassie, Fiona, with the
pipes ! "
Both men laughed lightly. On the last
Sabbath, old McAlpin had held a prayer-
meeting in his little house in the "street," in
Balliemore of Icna. At the end of his dis-
course he told his hearers that the voice of
God was terrible only to the evil-doer, but
beautiful to the righteous man, and that this
voice was even now among them, speaking
in a thousand ways, and yet in one way.
And at this moment, that elfin grand-daughter
of his, who was in the byre close by, let go
upon the pipes with so long and weary a
whine that the collies by the fire whimpered,
and would have howled outright but for the
Word of God that still lay open on the big
stool in front of old Peter, For it was in this
way that the dogs knew when the Sabbath
readings were over, and there was not one
that would dare to bark or howl, much less
rise and go out, till the Book was closed with
a loud, solemn bang. Well, again and again
that weary quavering moan went up and
down the room, till even old McAlpin smiled,
though he was fair angry with Fiona. But
72 THE NINTH WAVE
he made the sign of silence, and began : " My
brethren, even in this trial it may be the
Almighty has a message for us ," when
at that moment Fiona was kicked by a cow,
and fell against the board with the pipes, and
squeezed out so wild a wail that McAlpin
started up and cried, in the Lowland way
that he had won out of his wife, ''Hoots,
havers, an' a' ! come oot d that, ye deifs
spunkie ! "
So it was this memory that made Phadric
and Ivor smile. Suddenly Ivor began, with
a long rising and falling cadence, an old
Gaelic rune of the Faring of the Tide :
" Jlthair, Jl mhic, Jl Spioraid V^jioimh,
'Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a Ids a dk" oidhche ;
.S' air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann ! "
" O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Be the Three-in-One with us day and night,
On the crested wave, when waves run high ! "
And out of the place in the West
Where Tir-nan-6g, the Land of Youth
Is, the Land of Youth everlasting.
Send the great tide that carries the sea-weed
And brings the birds, out of the North :
And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken.
As a great snake through the heather of the sea.
The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea.
THE NINTH WAVE 73
And may it bring the fish to our nets,
And the great fish to our lines :
And may it sweep away the sea-hounds
That devour the herring :
And may it drown the heavy pollack
That respect not our nets
But fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly.
And may I, or any that is of my blood,
Bcholtl not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide ;
Or the Maighdeann-mara who broods in the shallows.
Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb :
And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near
to me.
And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring :
And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Sruth-mara,
And may there be no burden in the Ebb ! ochone !
Jin ainm an Jlthar, /' an Online, s' an Spioraid D'^oimh,
'Biod/i an Tri-aon leinn, a las a dh" o'tdhche,
i" air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beatin !
Ochone ! arone !
Both men sang the closing lines, with loudly
swelling voices, and with a wailing fervour
which no words of mine could convey.
Runes of this kind prevail all over the isles,
from the Butt of Lewis to the Rhinns of
Islay : identical in spirit, though varying in
lines and phrases, according to the mood and
temperament of the rannaiche or singer, the
local or peculiar physiognomy of nature, the
74 THE NINTH WAVE
instinctive yielding to hereditary wonder-words,
and other compelling circumstances of the
outer and inner life. Almost needless to say,
the sea-maid or sea-witch and the Wave-
Haunter occur in many of those wild runes,
particularly in those that are impromptu. In
the Outer Hebrides, the runes are wild natural
hymns rather than Pagan chants : though
marked distinctions prevail there also, — for in
Harris and the Lews the folk are Protestant
almost to a man, while in Benbecula and
the Southern Hebrides the Catholics are in
a like ascendancy. But all are at one in the
common Brotherhood of Sorrow.
The only lines in Ivor McLean's wailing
song which puzzled me were the two last
which came before "the good words," "in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit," etc.
"Tell me, in English, Ivor," I said, after a
silence, wherein I pondered the Gaelic words,
"what is the meaning of
" * And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Sriith-mara,
And may there be no burden in the Ebb ' ? "
" Yes, I will be telling you what is the mean-
ing of that. When the great tide that wells out
THE NINTH WAVE 75
of the hollow of the sea, and sweeps towards
all the coasts of the world, first stirs, when
she will be knowing that the Ebb is not any
more moving at all, she sends out nine long
waves. And I will be forgetting what these
waves are : but one will be to shepherd the
sea-weed that is for the blessing of man ; and
another is for to wake the fish that sleep in
the deeps ; and another is for this, and another
will be for that ; and the seventh is to rouse
the Wave - Haunter and all the creatures of
the water that fear and hate man ; and the
eighth no man knows, though the priests say
it is to carry the Whisper of Mary ; and the
ninth "
" And the ninth, Ivor ? "
" May it be far from us, from you and from
me, and from those of us. An' I will be
sayin' nothing against it, not I ; nor against
anything that is in the sea. An' you will be
noting that 1
" Well, this ninth wave goes through the
water on the forehead of the tide. An' wherever
it will be going it calls. An' the call of it is —
' Come away, come away, the sea waits !
Follow! . . . Co7?ie away, come away, the sea
'je THE NINTH WAVE
waits ! Follow ! ' * An' whoever hears that
must arise and go, whether he be fish or
pollack, or seal or otter, or great skua or
small tern, or bird or beast of the shore, or
bird or beast of the sea, or whether it be
man or woman or child, or any of the others."
"Any of the others, Ivor ? "
" I will not be saying anything about that,"
replied McLean gravely ; " you will be know-
ing well what I mean, and if you do not it
is not for me to talk of that which is not to
be talked about.
" Well, as I was for saying, that calling of
the ninth wave of the Tide is what Ian M6r
of the hills speaks of as ' the whisper of the
snow that falls on the hair, the whisper of
the frost that lies on the cold face of him
that will never be waking again.' "
"Death?''
" It is you that will be saying it."
" Well," he resumed, after a moment's hush,
"a man may live by the sea for five-score
years and never hear that ninth wave call in
any Sruth-7iidra ; but soon or late he will
* Ivor, of course, gave these words in the Gaelic, the
sound of which has the sweet wail of the sea in it.
THE NINTH WAVE -jy
hear it. An' many is the Flood that will be
silent for all of us ; but there will be one
Flood for each of us that will be a dreadful
Voice, a voice of terror and of dreadfulness.
And whoever hears that voice, he for sure
will be the burden in the Ebb."
"Has any heard that Voice, and lived?"
McLean looked at me, but said nothing.
Phadric Macrae rose, tautened a rope, and
made a sign to me to put the helm a-lee.
Then, looking into the green water slipping
by — for the tide was feeling our keel, and a
stronger breath from the sea lay against the
hollow that was growing in the sail — he said
to Ivor :
" You should be telling her of Ivor Maclvor
Mhic Niall."
"Who was Ivor MacNeill?" I said.
" He was the father of my mother," answered
McLean, "and was known throughout the
north isles as Ivor Carminish : for he had a
farm on the eastern lands of Carminish which
lie between the hills called Strondeval and
Rondeval, that are in the far south of the
Northern Hebrides, and near what will be
known to you as the Obb of Harris.
78 THE NINTH WAVE
"And I will now be telling you about him
in the Gaelic, for it is more easy to me, and
more pleasant for us all.
" When Ivor MacEachainn Carminish, that
was Ivor's father, died, he left the farm to
his elder son, and to his second son Sheumais.
By this time Ivor was married, and had the
daughter who is my mother. But he was a
lonely man, and an islesman to the heart's
core. So . . . but you will be knowing the
isles that lie off the Obb of Harris : the
Saghay, and Ensay, and Killegray, and, farther
west, Berneray ; and north-west, Pabaidh ; and,
beyond that again, Shillaidh ? "
For the moment I was confused, for these
names are so common : and I was thinking
of the big isle of Berneray that lies in huge
Loch Roag that has swallowed so great a
mouthful of Western Lewis, to the seaward
of which also are the two Pabbays, Pabaidh
M6r and Pabaidh Beag. But when McLean
added, " and other isles of the Caolas Harrish
(the Sound of Harris)," I remembered aright ;
and indeed I knew both, though the nor' isles
better, for I had lived near Callernish on the
inner waters of Roag.
THE NINTH WAVE 79
"Well, Carminish had sheep-runs upon some
of these. One summer the gloom came upon
him, and he left Sheumais to take care of
the farm, and of Morag his wife, and of Sheen
their daughter ; and he went to live upon
Pabbay, near the old castle that is by the
Rua Dune on the south - east of the isle.
There he stayed for three months. But on
the last night of each month he heard the
sea calling in his sleep ; and what he heard
was like ' Come away, come away, the sea
waits ! Follow f , . . Come away, come
away, the sea waits ! Follow I ' And he knew
the voice of the ninth wave ; and that it would
not be there in the darkness of sleep if it
were not already moving towards him through
the dark ways of An Dan (Destiny). So,
thinking to pass away from a place doomed
for him, and that he might be safe elsewhere,
he sailed north to a kinsman's croft on Aird-
Vanish in the island of Taransay. But at the
end of that month he heard in his sleep the
noise of tidal waters, and at the gathering of
the ebb he heard ' Cojne away, come away,
the sea waits ! Follow ! ' Then once more,
when the November heat -spell had come
8o THE NINTH WAVE
he sailed farther northward still. He stopped
awhile at Eilean Mhealastaidh, which is under
the morning shadow of high Griomabhal on
the mainland, and at other places ; till he
settled, in the third week, at his cousin
Eachainn MacEachainn's bothy, near Caller-
nish, where the Great Stones of old stand
by the sea, and hear nothing for ever but
the noise of the waves of the North Sea
and the cry of the sea -wind.
" And when the last night of November had
come and gone, and he had heard in his sleep
no calling of the ninth wave of the Flowing
Tide, he took heart of grace. All through
that next day he went in peace. Eachainn
wondered often with slant eyes when he saw the
morose man smile, and heard his silence give
way now and again to a short, mirthless laugh.
"The two were at the porridge, and
Eachainn was muttering his BuVcheas dhdn
Ti, the Thanks to the Being, when Carminish
suddenly leaped to his feet, and, with white
face, stood shaking like a rope in the wind.
'"In the name of the Son, what is it, Ivor
Mhic Ivor ? What is it, Carminish ? ' cried
Eachainn.
THE i\ I NTH WAVE 8i
" But the stricken man could scarce speak.
At last, with a long sigh, he turned and
looked at his kinsman, and that look went
down into the shivering heart like the polar
wind into a crofter's hut.
" ' W/m^ will be that ? ' said Carminish, in a
hoarse whisper.
" Eachainn listened, but he could hear no
wailing beann-sith, no unwonted sound.
'"Sure, I hear nothing but the wind moaning
through the Great Stones, an' beyond them the
noise of the Flowin' Tide.'
" * The Flowing Tide ! the Flowing Tide ! '
cried Carminish, and no longer with the hush
in the voice. ' An' what is it you hear in the
Flowing Tide ? '
" Eachainn looked in silence. What was the
thing he could say? For now he knew.
"'Ah, och, och, ochone, you may well sigh,
Eachainn Mhic Eachainn ! For the ninth
wave o' the Flowing Tide is coming out o' the
North Sea upon this shore, an' already I can
hear it calling ' Come away, come away, the
sea waits ! Follow ! . . , Come away, come
away, the sea waits I Follow ! '
" And with that Carminish dashed out the
F
82 THE NINTH WAVE
light that was upon the table, and leaped
upon Eachainn, and dinged him to the floor,
and would have killed him, but for the grow-
ing noise of the sea beyond the Stannin'
Stones o' Callernish, and the woe-weary sough
o' the wind, an' the calling, calling, ^Cofne, come
away ! Come, come away ! '
"And so he rose and staggered to the door,
and flung himself out into the night : while
Eachainn lay upon the floor and gasped for
breath, and then crawled to his knees, an'
took the Book from the shelf by his fern-
straw mattress, an' put his cheek against it,
an' moaned to God, an' cried like a child for
the doom that was upon Ivor Mclvor Mhic
Niall, who was of his own blood, and his own
c^a// at that.
"And while he moaned, Carminish was stalk-
ing through the great, gaunt, looming Stones
of the Druids that were here before St
Colum and his Shona came, and laughing wild.
And all the time the tide was coming in,
and the tide and the deep sea and the waves
of the shore, and the wind in the salt grass
and the weary reeds and the black-pool gale,
made a noise of a dreadful hymn, that was
THE NINTH WAVE 83
the death-hymn, the going-rune of Ivor the
son of Ivor of the kindred of Niall.
"And it was there that they found his body
in the grey dawn, wet and stiff with the salt
ooze. For the soul that was in him had
heard the call of the ninth wave that was for
him. So, and may the Being keep back that
hour for us, there was a burden upon that
ebb on the morning of that day.
" Also, there is this thing for the hearing.
In the dim dark before the curlew cried at
dawn, Eachainn heard a voice about the house,
a voice going like a thing blind and bafHed,
" * Cha till, cha till, cha till mi tuille ! ' "
(I return, I return, I return never more !)
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
The wind that blows on the feet of the dead
came calling loud across the Ross as we put
about the boat off the Rudhe Callachain. The
ebb sucked at the keel, while, like a cork,
we were swung lightly by the swell. For
we were in the strait between Eilean Dubh
and the Isle of the Swine ; and that is where
the current has a bad pull — the current that
is made of the inflow and the outflow. I
have heard that a weary woman of the olden
days broods down there in a cave, and that
day and night she weaves a web of water,
which a fierce spirit in the sea tears this way
and that as soon as woven.
So we put about, and went before the east
wind : and below the dip of the sail a-lee I
watched Soa grow bigger and gaunter and
blacker against the white wave. As we came
so near that it was as though the wash of the
sea among the hollows bubbled in our ears, I
84
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 85
saw a large bull-seal lying half-in half-out of
the water, and staring at us with an angry,
fearless look.
Phadric and Ivor caught sight of it almost
at the same moment.
To my surprise Macrae suddenly rose and
put a rosad upon it. I could hear the wind
through his clothes as he stood by the mast.
The rosad or spell was, of course, in the
Gaelic ; but its meaning was something like
this—
Ho, ro, 0 T^on diihh, O T{jn dubh !
tAn ainm an Jtthar, 0 %jn !
^S an m/tic, O T^jin !
'S an Spioraid [Kao'tmh.
O %j)n-a-mhara, O 7{j)n dubh !
Ho, ro, O black Seal, O black Seal !
In the name of the Father,
And of the Son,
And of the Holy Ghost,
O Seal of the deep sea, O black Seal !
Hearken the thing that I say to thee,
I, Phadric MacAlastair MhicCrae,
Who dwell in a house on the Island
That you look on night and day from Soa !
For I put rosad upon thee,
And upon the woman-seal that won thee,
And the women-seal that are thine.
86 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
And the young that thou hast ;
Ay, upon thee and;all thy kin
I put rosad, O Ron dubh, O Ron-a-mhara !
And may no harm come to me or mine,
Or to any fishing or snaring that is of me ;
Or to any sailing by storm or dusk,
Or when the moonshine fills the blind eyes of the dead,
No harm to me or mine
From thee or thine !
With a slow swinging motion of his head
Phadric broke out again into the first words
of the incantation, and now Ivor joined him ;
and with the call of the wind and the leaping
and the splashing of the waves was blent the
chant of the two fishermen —
Ho, ro, O \pn dubh, 0 Tijn dubh !
Jin ainm an Jlthar, V an IMhic, \s an Spioriad (Kaoimh,
O %jn-a-mhara, 0 T^jn dubh !
Then the men sat back, with that dazed
look in the eyes I have so often seen in those
of men or women of the Isles who are wrought.
No word was spoken till we came almost
straight upon Eilean-na-h' Aon-Chaorach. Then
at the rocks we tacked, and went splashing up
the Sound like a pollack on a Sabbath noon.*
* The lona fishermen, and, indeed, the Gaelic and Scottish
fishermen generally, believe that the pollack (porpoise) knows
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 87
"What was wrong with the old man of the
sea ? " I asked Macrae.
At first he would say nothing. He looked
vaguely at a coiled rope ; then, with hand-
shaded gaze, across to the red rocks at Fion-
naphort. I repeated my question. He took
refuge in English.
" It wass ferry likely the Clansman would
be pringing ta new minister-body. Did you pe
knowing him, or his people, or where he came
from?"
But I was not to be put off thus ; and at
last, while Ivor stared down the green-shelving
lawns of the sea below us, Phadric told me
this thing. His reluctance was partly due to
the shyness which, with the Gael, almost
invariably follows strong emotion, and partly
to that strange, obscure, secretive instinct
which is also so characteristically Celtic, and
often prevents Gaels of far apart isles, or of
different clans, from communicating to each
other stories or legends of a peculiarly inti-
mate kind.
when it is the Sabbath, and on that day will come closer to the
land, and be more wanton in its gambols on the sun-warmed
surface of the sea, than on the days when the herring-boats are
abroad.
88 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
" I will tell you what my father told me,
and what, if you like, you may hear again
from the sister of my father, who is the wife
of Ian Finlay, who has the farm on the
north side of Dun-I.
" You will have heard of old James Achanna
of Eilanmore, off the Ord o' Sutherland ? To
be sure, for have you not stayed there. Well,
I need not tell you how he came there out
of the south, but it will be news to you to
learn that my elder brother Murdoch was
had by him as a shepherd, and to help on
the farm. And the way of that thing was
this. Murdoch had gone to the fishing north
of Skye, with Angus and William Macdonald,
and in the great gale that broke up their
boat, among so many others, he found himself
stranded on Eilanmore. Achanna told him
that, as he was ruined, and so far from home,
he would give him employment ; and though
Murdoch had never thought to serve under a
Galloway man, he agreed.
" For a year he worked on the upper farm,
Ardoch - beag as it was called. There the
gloom came upon him. Turn which way he
would, the beauty that is in the day was no
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 89
more. In vain, when he came out into the air
in the morning did he cry Dcasiul ! and keep
by the sun-way. At night he heard the sea
calHng in his sleep. So, when the lambing
was over, he told Achanna that he must go,
for he hungered for the sea. True, the wave
ran all around Eilanmore, but the farm was
between bare hills and among high moors,
and the house was in a hollow place. But it
was needful for him to go. Even then, though
he did not know it, the madness of the sea
was upon him.
" But the Galloway man did not wish to lose
my brother, who was a quiet man, and worked
for a small wage. Murdoch was a silent lad,
but he had often the light in his eyes, and
none knew of w^hat he was thinking : may-
be it was of a lass, or a friend, or of the
ingle-neuk where his old mother sang o'
nights, or of the sight and sound of lona that
was his own land ; but I 'm considerin' it was
the sea he was dreamin' of, how the waves
ran laughin' an' dancin' against the tide, like
lambkins comin' to meet the shepherd, or how
the big green billows went sweepin' white
an' ghostly through the moonless nights.
90 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
" So the troth that was come to between
them was this : that Murdoch should abide
for a year longer, that is till Lammastide ; then
that he should no longer live at Ardoch-beag,
but, instead, should go and keep the sheep on
Bac-Mor."
" On Bac - M6r, Phadric," I interrupted,
"for sure, you do not mean our Bac-M6r?"
" For sure, I mean no other : Bac-Mor, of
the Treshnish Isles, that is eleven miles north
of lona, and a long four north-west of Staffa :
an' just Bac-Mor, an' no other,"
" Murdoch would be near home, there."
" Ay, near, an' farther away ; for 'tis to be
farther off to be near that which your heart
loves but ye can't get."
"Well, Murdoch agreed to this, but he did
not know there was no boat on the island.
It was all very well in the summer. The
herrin' smacks lay off Bac-Mor or Bac-beag
many a time ; and he could see them mornin',
noon, an' night ; an' nigh every day he could
watch the big steamer comin' southward down
the Mornish and Treshnish coasts of Mull, and
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 91
stand by for an hour off Staffa, or else come
northward out of the Sound of lona round
the Eilean Rabach ; and once or twice a
week he saw the Clansman coming or going
from Bunessan in the Ross to Scarnish in the
Isle of Tiree. Maybe, too, now and again,
a foreign sloop or a coasting schooner would
sail by ; and twice, at least, a yacht lay off
the wild shore, and put a boat in at the
landing - place, and let some laughing folk
loose upon that quiet place. The first time
it was a steam yacht, owned by a rich
foreigner, either an Englishman or an Ameri-
can,— I misremember now, — an' he spoke to
Murdoch as though he were a savage, and he
and his gay folk laughed when my brother
spoke in the only English he had (an' sober,
good English it was), an' then he shoves some
money into his hand, as though both were
evil-doers and were ashamed to be seen doing
what they did.
" * An' what is this for ? ' said my brother.
" ' Oh, it 's for yourself, my man, to drink
our health with,' answered the English lord,
or whatever he was, rudely. Then Murdoch
looked at him and his quietly, an' he said,
92 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
' God has your health an' my health in the
hollow of His hands. But I wish you well.
Only, I am not being your man, any more
than I am for calling you, my man ; an' I
will ask you to take back this money to
drink with ; nor have I any need for money,
but only for that which is free to all, but
that only God can give.' And with that the
foreign people went away, and laughed less.
But when the second yacht came, though it
was a yawl and owned by a Glasgow man
who had folk in the west, Murdoch would
not come down to the shore, but lay under
the shadow of a rock amid his sheep, and
kept his eyes upon the sun that was moving
west out of the south.
"Well, all through the fine months Murdoch
stayed on Bac-Mor, and thereafter through
the early winter. The last time I saw him
was at the New Year. On Hogmanay night
my father was drinking hard, and nothing
would serve him but he must borrow Alec
Macarthur's boat, and that he and our mother
and myself, and Ian Finlay and his wife, my
sister, should go out before the quiet south
wind that was blowing, and see Murdoch
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 93
where he lay sleeping or sat dreaming in his
lonely bothy. And, truth, we went. It was
a white sailing that I remember. The moon-
shinings ran in and out of the wavelets like
herrings through salmon nets. The fire-flauchts,
too, went speeding about. I was but a laddie
then, an' I noted it all ; an' the sheet-lightning
that played behind the cloudy lift in the
nor'-west.
" But when we got to Bac-M6r there was
no sign of Murdoch at the bothy : no, not
though we called high and low. Then my
father and Ian Finlay went to look, and
we stayed by the peats. When they came
back, an hour later, I saw that my father
was no more in drink. He had the same
look in his eyes as Ronald McLean had that
day last winter when they told him his bit
girlie had been caught by the small-pox in
Glasgow.
" I could not hear, or I could not make
out, what was said ; but I know that we all
got into the boat again, all except my father.
And he stayed. And next day Ian Finlay
and Alec Macarthur went out to Bac-M6r,
and brought him back.
94 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
" And from him and from Ian I knew all
there was to be known. It was a hard New
Year for all, and since that day, till a night
of which I will tell you, my father brooded
and drank, drank and brooded, and my
mother wept through the winter gloamings
and spent the nights starin' into the peats, wi'
her knittin' lyin' on her lap.
"For when they had gone to seek Mur-
doch that Hogmanay night, they came upon
him away from his sheep. But this was
what they saw. There was a black rock
that stood out in the moonshine, with the
water all about it ; and on this rock Murdoch
lay naked, and laughing wild. An' every
now and then he would lean forward and
stretch his arms out, an' call to his dearie.
An' at last, just as the watchers, shiverin' wi'
fear an* awe, were going to close in upon
him, they saw a — a — thing-^come out o' the
water. It was long an' dark, an' Ian said
its eyes were like clots o' blood ; but as to
that no man can say yea or nay, for Ian
himself admits it was a seal.
"An' this thing is true, an ainm an Athar !
they saw the dark beast o' the sea creep on
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 95
to the rock beside Murdoch, an' lie down
beside him, and let him clasp an' kiss it.
An' then he stood up, and laughed till the
skin crept on those who heard, and cried
out on his dearie and on a' the dumb things
o' the sea, an' the Wave- Haunter an' the
Grey Shadow ; an' he raised his hands, an'
cursed the world o' men, and cried out to
God, ' Turn your face to your own airidh,
O God, an' may rain an' storm an' snow be
between us!'
" An' wi' that, Deirg, his collie, could bide
no more, but loupit across the water, and
was on the rock beside him, wi' his fell
bristling like a hedge-rat. For both the naked
man an' the wet, gleamin' beast, a great she-
seal out o' the north, turned upon Deirg, an'
he fought for his life. But what could the
puir thing do? The seal buried her fangs
in his shoulder at last, an' pinned him to the
ground. Then Murdoch stooped, an' dragged
her off, an' bent down an' tore at the throat
o' Deirg wi' his own teeth. Ay, God's truth
it is I An' when the collie was stark, he
took him up by the hind legs an' the tail,
an' swung him round an' round his head, an'
96 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD
whirled him into the sea, where he fell black
in a white splatch o' the moon.
"An' wi' that, Murdoch slipped, and reeled
backward into the sea, his hands gripping at
the whirling stars. An' the thing beside him
louped after him, an' my father an' Ian heard
a cry an' a cryin' that made their hearts sob.
But when they got down to the rock they saw
nothing, except the floating body o' Deirg.
" Sure it was a weary night for the old
man, there on Bac - Mor by himself, with
that awful thing that had happened. He
stayed there to see and hear what might be
seen and heard. But nothing he heard —
nothing saw. It was afterwards that he heard
how Donncha MacDonald was on Bac-Mor
three days before this, and how Murdoch had
told him he was in love wi' a maighdeann-
7nhara, a sea-maid.
" But this thing has to be known. It was
a month later, on the night o' the full moon,
that Ian Finlay and Ian Macarthur and
Sheumais Macallum were upset in the calm
water inside the Sound, just off Port - na-
Frang, and were nigh drowned, but that they
called upon God and the Son, and so escaped,
THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 97
and heard no more the laughter of Murdoch
from the sea.
" And at midnight my father heard the
voice of his eldest son at the door ; but he
would not let him in. And in the morning
he found his boat broken and shred in
splinters, and his one net all torn. An' that
day was the Sabbath ; so, being a holy day,
he took the Scripture with him, an' he and
Neil Morrison the minister, having had the
Bread an' Wine, went along the Sound in
a boat, following a shadow in the water, till
they came to Soa. An' there Neil Morrison
read the Word o' God to the seals that lay
baskin' in the sun ; and one, a female, snarled
and showed her fangs ; and another, a black
one, lifted its head and made a noise that
was not like the barking of any seal, but was
as the laughter of Murdoch when he swung
the dead body of Deirg.
'' And that is all that is to be said. And
silence is best now between you and any
other. And no man knows the judgments
o' God.
"And that is all."
i
II
THE HARPING OF CRAVETHEEN
i
THE HARPING OF
CRAVETHEEN
When Cormac, that was known throughout
all Northern Eire as Cormac Conlingas, Cormac
the son of Concobar the son of Nessa, was
one of the ten hostages to Conairy M6r for
the lealty of the Ultonians, he was loved by
men and women because of his strength, his
valour, and his comeliness.
He was taller than the tallest of his nine
comrades by an inch, and broader by two
inches than the broadest : though that fellow-
ship of nine was of the tallest and broadest
men among the Ultonians, who were the
greatest warriors that green Banba, as Eir6
or Erin was called by the bards who loved
her, has ever seen.
The shenachies sang of him as a proud
champion, with eyes full of light and fire, his
countenance broad above and narrow below,
lOI
102 THE HARPING OF
ruddy-faced, with hair as of the gold of the
September moon.
The commonalty spoke of his mighty spear-
thrust, of his deft sword-swing, the terror of
his wrath, of the fury of his battle-lust, of his
laughter and light joy, and the singing that
was on his lips when his sword had the
silence upon it. No man dared touch "Blue-
Green," as Cormac Conlingas called it, — the
Whispering Sword as it was named among
his fellows. " Blue-Green," for in its sweep
it gleamed blue-green as the leaping levin,
whispered whenever it was athirst, and a red
draught it was that would quench that thirst
and no other draught for the drinking : and it
whispered when there was a ferment of the
red blood among men who hated while they
feared the Ultonians : and it whispered when-
ever a shadow dogged the shadow of Cormac
the son of Concobar the son of Nessa.
Therefore it was that of all who desired his
death there was none that did not fear the
doom-whisper of the sword that had been
forged by Len the Smith, where he sits
and works forever amid his mist of rainbows.
Women spoke of his strength as though it
CRAVETHEEN 103
were their proud beauty. He liad the way
of the sunh"ght with him, they said. And of
the sun-fire, added one ever, below her breath:
and that was Eilidh,* the daughter of Conn
mac Art and of Dearduil the daughter of
Somhairle the Prince of the Isles — Eilidh the
daughter of Dearduil the daughter of Morna,
the three queens of beauty in the three
generations of the generations.
She was not of the Ultonians, this fair
Eilidh, but of the people who were subject
to Conairy Mor. It was when the ten host-
ages abode with the Red Prince that she
grew faint and wan with the love - sickness.
Her mother, Dearduil, knew who the man
was. She put a mirror of polished steel
against the mouth of the girl while she slept,
and then it was that she saw the flames of
love burning a red heart on which was written
in white fire — " I am the heart of Cormac the
son of Concobar." The gladness was hers, as
well as the fear. Sure, there was no greater
hero than Cormac Conlingas ; but then he was
an Ultonian, and would soon be for going
away, and ill -pleased would Conairy M6r be
* Pronounce Eil-ih or Eily [liq.). So7iihairle is pronounced
So-irl-u.
104 THE HARPING OF
that the beautiful Eilidh, who was his ward
since the death of Conn, should be the wife
of one of the men of Concobar mac Nessa,
whom in his heart he hated.
There was a warrior there called Art mac
Art M6r. Conairy Mor loved him, and had
promised him Eilidh. One day this man
came to the over-lord, and said this thing: —
" Is she, Eilidh, to be hearing the lowing
of the kine that are upon my hills ? "
"That is so, Art mac Art."
" I have spoken to the girl. She is like
the wind in the grass."
"It is the way of women. Quest, and trace,
and you shall not find. But say 'Come,' and
they will come ; and say ' Do,' and they obey."
" I have put the word upon her, and she
has laughed at me. I have said ' Come,' and
she asked me if the running wave heard the
voice of yesterday's wind. I have said 'Do,'
and she called to me — ' Do the hills nod when
the fox barks?'"
" What is the thing that is behind your lips,
Art mac Art M6r?"
" This. That you send the man away that is
the cause of the mischief that is upon Eilidh."
CRAVETHEEN 105
"Who is the man?"
" He is of the Hostages."
Conairy M6r brooded awhile. Then he
stroked his beard, brown -black as burn-water
in shadow, and laughed.
" Why is there laughter upon you, my
King?"
"Sure, I laugh to think of the blood of
the white maid. They say it is of milk, but
I am thinking it must be the milk of the
hero -women of old, that was red and warm
as the stream the White Hound that courses
through the night swims in. And that blood
that is in Eilidh leaps to the blood of heroes.
She would have the weight of Cormac the
Yellow-haired on her breast I "
" His blood or mine ! "
The king kept silence for a time. Then
he smiled, and that boded ill. Then, after a
while, he frowned, and that was not so ill.
"Not thine, Art."
" And if not mine, what of Cormac mac
Concobar ? "
"He shall go."
" Alone ? "
" Alone."
io6 THE HARPING OF
And, sure, it was on the eve of that day
that Dearduil went to warn Cormac Conlin-
gas, and to beg him to leave the whiteness
of the snow without a red stain. But, when
she entered his sleeping-place, Eilidh was there
upon the deer-skins.
Dearduil looked for long before she spoke.
" By what is in your eyes, Eilidh, my
daughter, this is not the first time you have
come to Cormac Conlingas ? "
The girl laughed low. The white arms of
her moved through the sheen of her hair like
sickles among the corn. She looked at Cormac.
The flame that was in her eyes was bright in
his. The wife of Conn turned to him.
" No," he said gravely ; " it is not the first
time."
" Has the seed been sown, O husband-
man ? "
"The seed has been sown."
"It is death."
"The tide flows, the tide ebbs."
" Cormac, there will be two dead this night
if Conairy Mor hears this thing. And even
now his word moves against you. Do you
love Eilidh?"
CRAVETHEEN 107
Cormac smiled slightly, but made no answer.
"If you love her, you would not sec her
slain."
"There is no great evil in being slain,
Dearduil-nic-Somhairle."
" She is a woman, and she has your child
below her heart."
"That is a true thing."
"Will you save her?"
"If she will."
"Speak, Eilidh."
Then the terror that was in the girl's heart
arose, and moved about like a white bewildered
bird in the dark. She knew that Dearduil had
spoken out of her heart. She knew that Art
mac Art Mor was in this evil. She knew
that death was near for Cormac, and near
for her. The limbs that had trembled with
love trembled now with the breath of the fear.
Suddenly she drew a long sobbing sigh.
"Speak, Eilidh."
She turned her face to the wall.
"Speak, Eilidh."
" I will speak. Go, Cormac Conlingas."
The chief of the Ultonians started. This
doom to life was worse to hira than the
io8 THE HARPING OF
death-doom. An angry flame burned in his
eyes. His lip curled.
" May it not be a man-child you will have,
Eilidh of the gold-brown hair," he said scorn-
fully ; " for it would be an ill thing for a son
of Cormac mac Concobar to be a coward, as
his mother was, and to fear death as she
did, though never before her any of her
race."
And with that he turned upon his heel and
went out.
Cormac Conlingas had not gone far when
he met Art mac Art M6r with the others.
" It is the King's word," said Art simply.
" I am ready," answered Cormac. "Is it
death?"
" Come ; the King shall tell you."
But there was to be no blood that night.
Only, on the morrow the hostages were nine.
The tenth man rode slowly north-eastward
against the greying of the dawn.
If in the heart of Cormac Conlingas there
was sorrow and a bitter pain because of Eilidh,
whom he loved, and from whom he would
fain have taken the harshness of his word,
CRAVETHEEN 109
there was in the heart of Eilidh the sound
as of trodden sods.
That day it was worse for her.
Conairy M6r came to her himself. Art was
at his right hand. The king asked her if
she would give her troth to the son of Art
M6r ; and, that being given, if she would be
his wife.
"That cannot be," she said. The fear that
had been in the girl's heart was dead now.
The saying of Cormac had killed it. She
knew that, like her ancestor, the mother of
Somhairle, she could, if need be, have a log
of burning wood against her breast, and face
I the torture as though she were no more than
§ holding a dead child there.
i " And for why cannot it be ? " asked Conairy
M6r.
" For it is not Art's child that I carry in
my womb," answered Eilidh simply.
The king gloomed. Art mac Art put his
right hand to the dagger at his silver-bossed
leathern belt.
" Is it a wanton that you are ? "
" No. By my mother's truth, and the
mother of my mother, I love another man
no THE HARPING OF
than Art mac Art Mor, and that man loves
me ; and I am his."
"Who is this man?"
" His name is in my heart only."
" I will ask you three things, Eilidh, daughter
of Dearduil. Is the man one of your race ;
is he of noble blood ; is he fit to wed the
king's ward?"
" He is more fit to wed the king's ward
than any man in Eir^. He is of noble blood,
and himself the son of a king. But he is an
Ultonian."
"Thou hast said. It is Cormac mac Con-
cobar mac Nessa."
" It is Cormac Conlingas."
With a loud laugh Art mac Art strode
forward. He raised his hand, and flung it
across the face of the girl.
" Art thou his tenth or his hundredth ? Well,
I would not have you now as a serving-wench."
Once more the king gloomed. It went
ill with him, that sight of a man striking a
woman, howsoever lightly.
"Art, I have slain a better man than you
for a thing less worthy than that. Take
heed."
CRAVETHEEN iii
The man frowned, with the red light in
his eyes.
•'Will you do as you said, O King?"
" No ; not now. Eilidh, that blow has
saved you. I was going to let Art have his
way of you, and then do with you what he
willed, servitude or death, but now you are
free of him. Only this thing I say : no
Ultonian shall ever take you in his arms.
You shall wed Cravetheen, the step-brother
of Art."
"Cravetheen the Harper?"
"Even so."
" He is old, and neither comely nor gra-
cious."
"There is no age upon him that a maid
need mock at ; and he is gracious enough to
those who do not cross him ; and he has the
mouth of honey, he has ; and, if not as comely
as Cormac Conlingas, is yet fair to see."
"But ..."
" I have said."
And so it was. Cravetheen took Eilidh to
wife. But he left the great Dun of Conairy
M6r and went to live in his own Dun in the
112 THE HARPING OF
forest that clothed the frontiers of the land
of the Ultonians.
He took his harp that night, when for the
first time she lay upon the deer-skins in his
Dun, and he played a wild air. Eilidh listened.
The tears came into her eyes. Then deep
shadows darkened them. Then she clenched
her hands till the nails drew blood. At last
she lay with her face to the wall, trembling.
For Cravetheen was a Harper that had been
taught by a Green Hunter on the slopes of
Sliav - Sheean. He could say that in music
that other men could scarce say aright in
words.
And when he had ended he went up to
his wife, and said this only : —
"A day shall come when I will be playing
you a marriage song. But before that day
I will play to you twice."
"And beware the third playing," said, when
he had gone, his old mother, who sat before the
smouldering logs, crooning and muttering.
As for the second playing, that was not till
months later. It was at the set of the sun
that had shone on the birthing of the child
of Eilidh and Cormac Conlingas.
CR A VET HE EN 113
All through the soundless labour of the
woman — for she had the pride of pride —
Cravetheen the Harper played. What he
played was that the child might be born
dead. Eilidh knew this, and gave it the
breath straight from her heart. " My pulse
to you," she whispered between her low sobs.
Then Cravetheen played that it might be
born blind and deaf and dumb. But Eilidh
knew this, and she whispered to the soul
that was behind her eyea^ ^^ Give it light" ;
and to the soul that was listening behind
her ears — '''Give it hearing" \ and to the soul
whose silence was beneath her silence — " Give
it speech^
And so the child was born ; and it was a
man-child, and fair to see.
When the swoon was upon Eilidh, Crave-
theen ceased from his harping. He rose and
looked upon the woman. Then he lifted the
child and laid it on a doe-skin in the sunlight,
on a green place, that was the meeting-place
of the moonshine dancers. With that he took
up his harp again, and again played.
At the first playing, the birds ceased from
singing. There was silence amid the boughs.
H
114 THE HARPING OF
At the second, the leaves ceased from rust-
ling : there was silence on the branches. At
the third, the hare leaped no more, the fox
blinked with sleep, the wolf lay down. At
the fourth, and fifth, and sixth, the wind
folded its wings like a great bird, the wood-
breeze crept beneath the bracken and fell
asleep, the earth sighed and was still. There
was silence there : for sure, silence everywhere,
as of sleep.
At the seventh playing, the quiet people
came out upon the green place. They were
small and dainty, clad in green, with small
white faces : just like lilies of the valley they
were.
They laughed low among themselves, and
some clapped their hands. One climbed a
thistle, and swung round and round till he
fell on his back with a thud, like the fall of
a dewdrop, and cried pitifully. There was
no peace till a duinshee took him by a green
leg, and shoved him down a hole in the grass,
and stopped it with a dandelion.
Then one among them, with a scarlet robe
and a green cap, with a thread of thistledown
waving from it like a plume, and with his
CRAVETIIEEN 115
wee eyes aflame, stepped forward, and began
to play on a little harp made of a bird-bone
with three gossamer - films for strings. And
the wild air that he played and the songs
that he sang were those fonnshcen that few
hear now, but that those who do hear know
to be sweeter than the sorrow of joy.
Suddenly Cravetheen ceased playing, and
then there was silence with the Green Harper
also. All of the hillside - folk stood still.
When an eddy of air moved along the grass
they wavered to and fro like reeds with the
coolness at their feet.
Then the Green Harper threw aside his
scarlet cloak and his green cap, and the hair
of him was white and flowing as the canna.
He broke the three threads of gossamer, and
flung away the bird-bone harp. Then he drew
a wee bit reed from his waist-band that was
made of beaten gold, and put it to his lips,
and began to play. And what he played was
so passing sweet that Cravetheen went into a
dream, and played the same wild air, and he
not knowing it, nor any man.
It was with that that the soul of the child
heard the elfin -music, and came out. Sure,
ii6 THE HARPING OF
it is a hard thing for the naked spirit to
steal away from its warm home of the flesh,
with the blood coming and going for ever
like a mother's hand, warm and soft. But
to the playing of Cravetheen and the Green
Harper there was no denying. The soul
came forth, and stood with great frightened
eyes.
" Shrink ! Shrink ! Shrink ! " cried all the
quiet people ; and, as they cried, the human
spirit shrank so as to be at one with them.
Then, as it seemed, two shining white flowers
— for they were bonnie, bonnie — stepped for-
ward and took the human by the hand, and
led it away. And as they went, the others
followed, all singing a glad song, that fell
strange and faint upon the ear of Cravetheen.
All passed into the hillside save the Green
Harper, who stopped awhile, playing and play-
ing and playing, till Cravetheen dreamed he
was Alldai, the God of Gods, and that the
sun was his bride, and the moon his para-
mour, and the stars his children and the
joys that were before him. Then he, too,
passed.
With that, Cravetheen came out of his
CRAVETHEEN 117
trance, and rubbed his eyes as a man startled
from sleep.
He looked at the child. It would be a
changeling now, he knew. But when he
looked at it again he saw that it was dead.
So he called to Gealcas, that was his mother,
and gave her the body.
"Take that to Eilidh," he said; "and tell
her that this is the second playing, and that
I will be playing once again, before it 's breast
to breast with us."
And these were the words that Gealcas
said to Eilidh, who in her heart cursed Crave-
theen, and mocked his cruel patience, and
longed for Cormac of the Yellow Hair, and
cared nought for all the harping that Crave-
theen could do now.
It was in the Month of the White Flowers
that Cormac Conlingas came again.
He was in the southland when news reached
him that his father Concobar mac Nessa was
dead. He knew that if he were not speedily
with the Ultonians they might not grant him
the Ard-Reeship. He, surely, and no other,
should be Ard-Ree after Concobar ; yet there
ii8 THE HARPING OF
was one other who might well become over-
lord of the Ultonians in his place were he
not swift with word and act.
So swift was he that he mounted and rode
away from his fellows without taking with
him the famous Spear of Pisarr, which was a
terror in battle. This was that fiery living
spear, wrought by the son of Turenn, and won
out of Eir6 by the god Lu Lam-fdda. In battle
it flew hither and thither, a live thing.
He rode from noon to within an hour of
the setting of the sun. Then he saw a low
green hill rise like a pine-cone out of the
wood, bossed with still-standing stones of an
ancient ruined Dun. Against it a blue column
of smoke trailed. Cormac knew now where
he was. Word had come to him recently
from Eilidh herself
He drew rein, and stared awhile. Then he
smiled ; then once more he gloomed, and his
eyes were heavy with the shadow of that
gloom.
It was then that he drew " Blue-Green "
from its sheath, and listened. There was a
faint murmur along the blade, as of gnats
above a pool, but there was no whispering.
CRAVETIIEEN 119
Once more he smiled.
" It will be for the happening," he muttered.
Then, leaning back, he sang this Rune to
Eilidh :—
Oime, Oime, Woman of" the white breasts, Eilidh !
Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan !
Oime, 0-ri, Oime !
Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft.
Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh —
Oime, a-ro ; Oime, a-ro !
It is the marrow in my bones that is aching, aching, Eilidh :
It is the blood in my body that is a bitter wild tide, Oime !
0-ri, 0-hion, 0-r^, arone !
Is it the heart of thee calling that I am hearing, Eilidh,
Or the wind in the wood, or the beating of the sea, Eilidh,
Or the beating of the sea ?
Shule, shule agrah, shule agrah, shule agrah, Shule !
Heart of me, move to me ! move to me, heart of me, Eilidh, Eilidh,
Move to me !
Ah ! let the wild hawk take it, the name of me, Cormac
Conlingas,
Take it and tear at thy heart with it, heart that of old was so
hot with it,
Eilidh, Eilidh, o-ri, Eilidh, Eilidh !
And the last words of that song were so
loud and clear — loud and clear as the voice
of the war - horn — that Eilidh heard. The
120 THE HARPING OF
heart of her leaped, the breast of her heaved,
the pulses danced in the surge of the blood.
Once more it was with her as though she
were with child by Cormac Conlingas. She
bade the old mother of Cravetheen and all
who abode in the Dun to remain within, and
not one to put the gaze upon the Grianan,
her own place there, or upon whom she
should lead to it. Then she went forth to
meet Cormac, glad to think of Cravetheen far
thence on the hunting, and not to be back
again till the third day.
It was the meeting of two waves, that.
Each was lost in the other. Then, after
long looking in the eyes, and with the words
aswoon on the lips, they moved hand in hand
towards the Dun.
And as they moved, the Whispering of the
Sword made a sound like the going of wind
through grass.
" What is that ? " said Eilidh, her eyes large.
" It is the wind in the grass," Cormac
answered.
And as they entered the Dun the Whisper-
ing of the Sword made a confused murmur
as of the wind among swaying pines.
CRAVETHEEN 121
"What is that?" Eilidh asked, fear in her
eyes.
" It is the wind in the forest," said Cormac.
But when, after he had eaten and drunken,
they went up to the Grianan, and lay down
upon the deer -skins, the Whispering of the
Sword was so loud that it was as the surf
of the sea in a wild wind.
"What is that?" cried Eilidh, with a sob
in her throat.
"It is the wind on the sea," Cormac said,
his voice hoarse and low.
" There is no sea within three days' march,"
whispered Eilidh, as she clasped her hands.
But Cormac said nothing. And now the
Sword was silent also.
It was that night that Cravetheen returned.
He was playing one of the fonnsheen he
knew, as he came through the wood in the
moonlight, for in the hunting of a stag he
had made a great circle and was now near
Dunchraig agaiti, Dunchraig that was his Dun.
But he had left his horse with his kindred in
the valley, and had come afoot through the
wood.
122 THE HARPING OF
He stopped as he was nigh upon the rocks
against which the Dun was built. He saw
the blackness of the shadow of a living thing.
"Who is that?" he cried.
"It is I, Murtagh L^m-Rossa" . . . and
with that a man out of the Dun came forward
slowly and hesitatingly. He was a man who
hated Eilidh, because she had put him to
shame.
Cravetheen looked at him.
" I am waiting," he said.
Still the man hesitated.
" I am waiting, Murtagh Lam-Rossa."
"This is a bitter thing I have to say. I
was on my way for the telling."
" It is of Eilidh that is my wife ? "
"You have said it."
" Speak."
" She does not sleep alone in the Grianan,
and there is no one of the Dtn who is there
with her."
"Who is there?"
"A man."
Cravetheen drew a long breath. His hand
went to the dagger at his belt.
"What man?"
»
CRAVETHEEN 123
" Cormac mac Concobar, that is called Cormac
Conlingas."
Again Cravetheen drew a deep breath, and
the blood was on his lip.
" You are knowing this thing for sure ? "
" I am knowing it."
" That is what no other man shall do " — and
with that Cravetheen flashed the dagger in
the moonshine, and thrust it with a surg-
ing sound into the heart of Murtagh Ldm-
Rossa.
With a groan the man sank. His white
hands wandered among the fibrous dust of
the pine-needles: his face was as a livid
wave with the foam of death on it,
Cravetheen looked at the froth on his lips :
it was like that of the sped deer. He looked
at the bubbles about the hilt of the knife : they
were as the yeast of cranberries.
" That is the sure way of silence," he said ; and
he moved on, and thought no more of the man.
When he came nigh the DOn he stood a
long while in thought. He could not reach
the Grianan he knew. Swords and spears
for Eilidh, before then, mayhap ; and if not,
there was Cormac Conlingas — and not Cormac
124 THE HARPING OF
only, but the Sword " Blue-Green " and the
Spear " Pisarr."
But a thought drove into his mind as a
wind into a corrie.
He put back his sword, and took his harp
again.
" It is the third playing," he muttered with
a grim smile.
Then once more he stood on the green
rath of the quiet people, and played the fonn-
sheen, till they heard. And when the old elfin
harper was come, Cravetheen played the tune
of the asking.
" What will you be wanting, Cravetheena-
mac-Rory ? " asked the Green Harper.
" The tune of the trancing sleep, green prince
of the hill."
" Sure, you shall have it " . . . and with
that the Green Harper gave the magic melody,
so that not a leaf stirred, not a bird moved,
and even the dew ceased to fall.
Then Cravetheen took his harp and played.
The dogs in the Dun rose, but none howled.
Then all lay down, nosing their outstretched
paws. Thrice the stallions in the rear of the
Dun put back their ears, but no neighing was
CRAVETHEEN 125
on their curled lips. The marcs whimpered,
and then stood with heads low, asleep. The
armed men did not awake, but slumbered
deep. The women dreamed into the darkness
where no dream is. The old mother of Crave-
theen stirred, crooned wearily, bowed her grey
head, and was in Tir-nan-Og again, walking
with Rory mac Rory, that loved her — him
that was slain with a spear and a sword long
long ago.
Only Eilidh and Cormac Conlingas were
waking. Sweet was that wild harping against
their ears.
" It will be the Green Harper himself," whis-
pered Cormac, drowsy with the sleep that
was upon him.
" It will be the harping of Cravetheen I am
thinking," said Eilidh, with a low sigh, yet as
though that thing were nothing to her : but
Cormac did not hear, for he was asleep.
" I see nine shadows leaping upon the wall,"
murmured Eilidh, while her heart beat and
her limbs lay in chains.
" . . . . mo-ve to me, heart of me, Eilidh, BiiuUi,
Mo^e to me ! "
murmured Cormac in a low passionate whisper.
126 HARPING OF CRAVETHEEN
" I see nine hounds leaping into the Dun,"
Eilidh cried, though none heard.
Cormac smiled in his sleep.
" Ah, ah, I see nine red phantoms leaping into
the room ! " screamed Eilidh ; but none heard.
Cormac smiled in his sleep.
And then it was that the nine red flames grew
ninefold, and the whole Dun was wrapt in flame.
For this was the doing of Cravetheen the
Harper. All there died in the flame. That
was the end of Eilidh, that was so fair. She
laughed the pain away, and died. And Cormac
smiled ; and as the flame leapt on his breast
he muttered, " Ahy hoi heart of Eilidh ! — heart
of me — move to me ! " And he died.
There was no Dun, and there were no folk,
and no stallions and mares, and no baying
hounds when Cravetheen ceased from the
playing ; but only ashes.
He looked at them till dawn. Then he
rose, and he broke his harp. Northward he
went to tell the Ultonians that thing ; and to
die the death.
And this was the end of Cormac the Hero —
Cormac the son of Concobar the son of Nessa,
that was called Cormac Conlingas.
Ill
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
i
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
I
The Tempest
The forest undulated across the land in vast
black-green billows. Their sombre solitudes
held no light. The sky was of a uniform
grey, a dull metallic hue, such as the sea
takes when a rainy wind comes out of the
east. There was not a break in the appalling
monotony.
To the north rose a chain of mountains.
Connecting one to another, were serrated
scaurs, or cleft, tortured, and precipitous
ridges. The wild-stag had his sanctuary here ;
here were reared the young of the osprey,
the raven, the kestrel, and the corbie. On
the extreme heights the eagles called from
their eyries at sunrise ; at sundown they
might be seen whirling like minute discs
around the flaming peaks.
I 129
I30 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
An absolute silence prevailed. At long
intervals there was the restless mewing of a
wind-eddy, baffled among the remote corries.
Sometimes, far beneath and beyond, in the
midmost depths of the forest, a sound, as of
the flowing tide at an immeasurable distance,
rose, sighed through the grey silences, and
sank into their drowning depths.
At noon, a slight stir was visible here and
there. Two crows drifted inky-black against
the slate-grey firmament. A kestrel, hovering
over a rocky wilderness, screamed, and with
a sudden slant cut the heavy air, skimmed
the ground, breasted the extreme summits of
the pines, and sailed slowly westward, silent,
apparently motionless, till absorbed into the
gloom. A slight mist rose from a stagnant
place. On a black moorland tract, miles away
from where the forest began, two small, gaunt
creatures, human males, stooped continually,
tearing at the peaty soil.
By the fourth hour from noon, there was
nothing audible ; not a thing visible save the
black-gloom overhead, the green-gloom of the
vast pine-forest, the grey sterility of the hills
to the north.
^
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 131
Towards the fifth hour, a sickly white
flame darted forkedly out of the slate-hued
sky to the north-west. There was no wind,
no stir of any kind, following. The same
breathless silence brooded everywhere.
Close upon the sixth hour a strange shiver-
ing went through a portion of the forest. It
was as though the flank of a monster quivered.
A confused rustling arose, ebbed, died away.
Thrice, at long intervals, the narrow jagged
flame lunged and thrust, as a needle thridding
the two horizons. At a vast distance, a wail,
a murmur, a faint vanishing cry might be
heard, like the humming of a gnat. It was
the wind, tearing and lashing the extreme
frontiers, and screaming in its blind fury.
A raven came flying rapidly out of the
west. Again and again in its undeviating
flight its hoarse croak re-echoed as though it
fell clanging from ledge to brazen ledge. At
an immense height three eagles, no larger than
three pin-points, winging their way at terrific
speed, seemed to crawl like ants along the blank
slope of a summitless and endless wall.
In the south-west the greyness became in-
volved. Dark masses bulged, lividly smooth.
132 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
A gigantic hand appeared to mould them from
behind. The ponderous avalanches of rain
were suspended, lifted, whirled this way and
that, fused, divided, and swung low over the
earth like horrible balloons of death.
Furtive eddies of wind moved stealthily
among the forest trees. The pines were
motionless, though a thin song ascended
spirally the columnar boles ; but the near
beeches were flooded with innumerable green
wavelets of unquiet light. A constant tremor
lived fugitive in every birk, in every rowan.
On the hither frontier of the pines a few
scattered oaks lifted their upper boughs, lifted
and lapsed, slowly lifted again and slowly
lapsed. These were silent, though a confused
murmur as of bewildered bees came from the
foliage midway and beneath. Wan green
tongues of air licked the fronds of the myriad
bracken. Swift arrows of wind, narrow as
reeds, darted through the fern and over the
patches of grass, leaving for a moment a wake
of white light. By a pool the bulrushes
seemed to strain their tufty heads one way,
listening ; the tall, slim, fairy - lances beside
them continually trembled.
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 133
Suddenly there was an obscure noise upon
the hills. Far off, a linn roared hoarsely,
whose voice had been muffled before. Many
streams and hill -torrents called. Then the
mountain-wind came rushing down the strath,
with incoherent shouts and a confused tumult
of tidings. Every green thing moved one
way, or stood back upon itself as a javelin-
thrower. In the tragic silence of the forest
and the moorland, the pulse of the earth beat
slowly, heavily. A suffocating grip was at
the brown heart.
But the moment the hill - wind dashed
through the swaying rowans and beeches, and
leaped into the forest, a hurricane of cries
arose. Every tree called to its neighbour :
each pine shouted, screamed, moaned, or
chanted a wild song ; the more ancient lifted
a deep voice, mocking and defiant. For now
they knew what was coming.
The sea-tempest was climbing up over the
back of the sun, and had already, with rolling
thunders and frightful sulphurous blasts, with
flame of many lightnings and vast volumes of
cloud holding seas of rain and gravelly ava-
lanches of hail, attacked, prostrated, trampled
134 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
upon, mutilated, slain and twice slain, the
far-off battalions of the forest! This was what
the herald of the hills proclaimed, as with
panic haste he leaped through the woods,
screaming wild warnings as he went.
For leagues and leagues he swept onward :
then, suddenly swerving, raced up a rock-
bastioned height that rose out of the forest.
For a while he swung suspensive, then, sway-
ing blindly, fell back stumbling, and as one
delirious staggered to the forest again, and
once more flew like a flying deer, though no
longer forward but by the way he had come.
"The Tempest! The Tempest!" he screamed:
" The Tempest comes ! "
Soon all the forest knew what he had seen.
Distant lines of great trees were being mown
down as by a scythe : gigantic pines were
being torn from the ground and hurled hither
and thither : the Black Loch had become a
flood : the river had swollen into a frightful
spate, and raged and ravened like a beast of
prey. He had seen cattle fall, slain by light-
ning : a stag had crashed downwards as he
leapt from boulder to boulder : the huts of
some humans had been laid low, and the
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 135
sprawling creatures beneath been killed or
mutilated : sheep had been dashed up against
stone-dykes and left lifeless. The air in places
was thick and dark with whirling grouse,
snipe, wild-doves, lapwings, crows, and a dust
of small birds.
A moan went up from the forest, a new
sound, horrible, full of awe, of terror, of
despair. In the blank grey hollows of the
mountains to the north the echo of this was
as though the Grave were opened, and the
Dead moaned.
Young and old moved near to each other,
with clinging boughs, and tremulous sprays
and branches. The fluttering leaves made
a confused babble of tongues. The males
swirled their upper boughs continuously, in-
clining their bodies now this way and now
that. The ancient pines spread their boles
as far as they could reach, murmuring low
to their green offsprings, and to the tender
offspring of these. Sighs, and sobs, swift
admonitions, and sudden heart-break cries, re-
sounded. Death would be among them in
a few moments : all could not survive, many
must perish, patriarch and sapling, proud
136 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
bridegroom and swaying bride, the withered
and the strong.
From the extreme edge there was a constant
emigration of living things. The birds sank
among the bracken.
Some deer, three human males and a female,
some foxes and stoats, came out into the
open, hesitated, and slowly retreated.
The first thunder-chariot now hurtled over-
head. The shadowy charioteer leaned low,
and thrust hither and thither with his frightful
lance. A deer was killed, also the human
female and one of the males. A scorching
smell came from a spruce-fir : the next mo-
ment it hung in tongues of flame.
Then . . . silence : awful, appalling. Suddenly
the heaven opened in fire: the earth became
a hollow globe of brass wherein an excruciat-
ing tumult whirled ruin against ruin. The
howl of Desolation seemed to belch at once
from the entrails of the mountains and from
the bowels of the bursting sky.
The Tempest was come !
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 137
II
Mist
A DENSE white mist lay upon the hills, cloth-
ing them from summit to base in a dripping
shroud. The damp spongy peat everywhere
sweated forth its over-welling ooze. Not a
living thing seemed to haunt the desolation,
though once or twice a faint cry from a
bewildered curlew came stumblingly through
the sodden atmosphere.
There was neither day nor night, but only
the lifeless gloom of the endless weary rain :
thin, soaking, full of the chill and silence of
the grave.
Hour lapsed into hour, till at last the gradual
deepening of the mists betokened the dreary end
of the dreary day. Soaked, boggy, treacherous,
as were the drenched and pool-haunted moors,
no living thing, not even the restless hill-sheep,
fared across them. But towards the late after-
noon a stooping figure passed from gloom to
gloom — wan, silent, making the awfulness of the
hour and the place take on a new desolation.
As the shadow stole slowly across the moor,
138 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
it stopped ever and anon. It was a man. The
heavy moisture on his brow, from the rain
passing through his matted hair, mixed with
the great drops of sweat that gathered there
continually. For as often as he stopped he
heard footsteps anigh, footsteps in that lonely,
deserted place — sometimes following, some-
times beyond him, sometimes almost at his
side. Yet it was not for the sound of those
following feet that he stopped, but because
on the rain-matted cranberry bushes, or upon
the glistening thyme, or on the sodden grass,
he saw now bloody foot-marks, now marks of
bloody fingers. When he looked there was
nothing below or beyond him but the dull
sheen of the rain-soaked herbage ; when he
looked again a bloody footstep, a bloody
finger-mark.
But at last the following feet were heard
no more — the bloody imprints were no more
seen. The man stood beside a deep tarn,
and was looking into it, as the damned in
hell look into their souls.
At times a faint, almost inaudible sigh breathed
behind the mist in one direction. It was the
hill-wind stirring among the scaurs and corries
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 139
at a great height on a mountain to the north.
Here and there a sh'ght drifting of the vapour
disclosed a shadowy boulder ; then the veils
would lajxse and intervolvc, and the old im-
permeable obscurity prevail.
It was in one of these fugitive intervals that
a stag, standing upon an overhanging rock,
beheld another, a rival with whom it had
fought almost to the death the day before.
This second stag stood among the wet bracken,
his ears now laid back, now extended quiver-
ingly, his nostrils vibrating as he strove to
smell the something that moved through the
dense mist by the tarn.
The upper stag tautened his haunches. His
lips and nostrils curled, and left his yellow
teeth agleam. The next moment he had
launched himself upon his enemy. There was
a crash, a sound as of a wind-lashed sea,
sharp cries and panting breaths, groans. Then
a long silence. Later, a single faint perishing
bleat came through the mist from the fern
far up upon the hill.
The restless wind that was amid the summits
died. Night crept up from glen and strath —
the veils of mist grew more and more obscure,
140 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
more dark. At last, from the extreme peaks
to where the torrent crawled into hollows in
the sterile valley, there was a uniform pall
of blackness.
In the chill, soaking silence not a thing
stirred, not a sound was audible.
Ill
Summer-sleep
The high-road sinuated like a white snake
along the steeper slope of the valley. The
vast expanse of the lowland lay basking in
the July sunlight. In all directions woodlands,
mostly of planes and oaks, swelled or lapsed
in green billows.
The cuckoo had gone ; the thrush was
silent ; blackbird and shilfa and linnet were
now songless. But every here and there a
lark still filled the summer air, as with the
cool spray of aerial music. In the grain the
corncrakes called ; and in shadowy places in
the twilight the churring of a belated fern-
owl was still a midsummer sweetness upon
the ear.
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 141
The gloom of July was upon the trees.
The oaks dreamed of green water. The limes
were already displaj-ing fugitive yellow banners.
A red flush dusked the green-gloom of the
sycamores. But by far the greater mass of
the woodlands consisted of planes, and these
were now of a black green, darker than that
of north-wind waves on a day of storm. The
meadows, too, lay in the shadow, as it were,
even when the sun-flood poured upon them.
From the low ranges to the south a faint
wind drifted leisurely northward. The sky was
of a vivid blue, up whose invisible azure
ledges a few rounded clouds, dazzling white,
or grey as swan's-down, climbed imperceptibly.
In the air was a pleasant murmur of the
green world. The wild - bee and the wasp,
the dragon-fly and the gnat, wrought every-
where a humming undertone. From copse
and garth and water - meadow suspired an
audible breath.
The lowing of kine from many steadings
blended with the continuous murmur of a
weir, where the river curved under ancient
alders and slipped into a dense green shaw
of birches beyond an old water-mill, whose
142 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
vast black wheel, jagged and broken, swung
slowly, fanning the hot air so that it made a
haze as of faint -falling rain.
Peace was upon the land, and beauty. The
languor of dream gave the late summer a
loveliness that was all its own, as of a fair
woman asleep, dreaming of the lover who has
not long left her, and the touch of whose lips
is still warm upon her mouth and hair.
Along the high - road, where it made a
sweep south-westward, and led to a small
hamlet of thatched, white-walled cottages, three
men walked. The long fantastic shadows
which they cast were pale blue upon the
chalky dust of the road, and leaped and
contracted and slid stealthily forward with
wearisome monotonous energy. Two of the
men were tall and fair ; one dark, loosely
built, and of a smaller and slighter build.
" There is my home," said the tallest way-
farer suddenly, after what had been a long
silence ; and as he spoke he pointed to a
small square house set among orchard -trees,
a stone's -throw from the hamlet.
" It is a beautiful place," replied his com-
rade slowly, "and I envy you."
TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 143
"Yes, indeed," added the other.
" I am glad you think so," the owner of the
house answered quietly.
But the three shadows leapt to one side,
moved with fantastic steps, and seemed con-
vulsed with laughter.
Perhaps the tall shiver- grass that rose by
the wayside out of the garth of campions and
purple scabious could catch the attenuated
sounds and understand the speech of the
shadows. If so, it would know that the taller
of the two strangers said in his heart : —
" There is something of awe, of terror, about
that house ; nay, the whole land here is under
a tragic gloom. I should die here, stifled,
I am glad I go on the morrow."
It would know that the smaller and darker
of the two strangers said in his heart : —
" It may all be beautiful and peaceful, but
something tragic hides behind this flooding
sunlight, behind these dark woodlands, down
by the water-course there, past the water-mill,
up by that house among the orchard-trees."
It would know that the tallest of the three
men, he who lived in that square cottage by
the pleasant hamlet, said in his heart : —
144 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES
" It may be that the gate of hell is hidden
there among the grass, or beneath the found-
ations of my house. Would God I were free!
O my God, madness and death ! "
Then, after another long silence, as the
three wayfarers drew near, the dark man
murmured his pleasure at the comely hamlet,
at the quiet land lying warm in the afternoon
glow. And his companion said that rest and
coolness would be welcome, and doubly so in
so fair and peaceful a home. And the tallest
of the three, he who owned the house in the
orchard, laughed blithely. And all three
moved onward with quickened steps, through
the hot, sweet, dusty afternoon, golden now
with the waning sun-glow.
IV
THE ANOINTED MAN
THE DAN-NAN-RON
GREEN BRANCHES
K
THE ANOINTED MAN
Oi'" the seven Achannas — sons of Robert
Achanna of Achanna in Galloway, self-exiled
in the far north because of a bitter feud with
his kindred — who lived upon Eilanmore in
the Summer Isles, there was not one who
was not, in more or less degree, or at some
time or other, fey.
Doubtless I shall have occasion to allude to
one and all again, and certainly to the eldest
' and youngest : for they were the strangest folk
I have known or met anywhere in the Celtic
lands, from the sea-pastures of the Solway to
the kelp-strewn beaches of Lewis. Upon
James, the seventh son, the doom of his
people fell last and«4nost heavily. Some day
I may tell the full story of his strange life
and tragic undoing, and of his piteous end.
As it happened, I knew best the eldest and
youngest of the brothers, Alison and James.
Of the others, Robert, Allan, William, Marcus,
147
148 THE ANOINTED MAN
and Gloom, none save the last-named survives,
if perad venture he does, or has been seen of
man for many years past. Of Gloom (strange
and unaccountable name, which used to terrify
me — the more so as, by the savagery of fate,
it was the name of all names suitable for
Robert Achanna's sixth son) I know nothing
beyond the fact that, ten years or more ago,
he was a Jesuit priest in Rome, a bird of
passage, whence come and whither bound no
inquiries of mine could discover. Two years
ago a relative told me that Gloom was dead ;
that he had been slain by some Mexican noble
in an old city of Hispaniola, beyond the seas.
Doubtless the news was founded on truth,
though I have ever a vague unrest when I
think of Gloom ; as though he were travelling
hitherward, as though his feet, on some urgent
errand, were already white with the dust of
the road that leads to my house.
But now I wish to speak only of Alison
Achanna. He was a friend whom I loved,
though he was a man of close on forty and
I a girl less than half his years. We had
much in common, and I never knew anyone
more companionable, for all that he was called
THE ANOINTED MAN 149
"Silent Ally." He was tall, c^aunt, loosely-
built. His eyes were of that misty blue
which smoke takes when it rises in the woods.
I used to think them like the tarns that lay
amid the canna and gale-surrounded swamps
in Uist, where I was wont to dream as a
child.
I had often noticed the light on his face
when he smiled — a light of such serene joy as
young mothers have sometimes over the cradles
of their firstborn. But for some reason I had
never wondered about it, not even when I heard
and dimly understood the half- contemptuous,
half-reverent mockery with which, not only
Alison's brothers, but even his father, at times
used towards him. Once, I remember, I was
puzzled when, on a bleak day in a stormy
August, I overheard Gloom say, angrily and
scoffingly, " There goes the Anointed Man ! "
I looked, but all I could see was that, despite
the dreary cold, despite the ruined harvest,
despite the rotting potato-crop, Alison walked
slowly onward, smiling, and with glad eyes
brooding upon the grey lands around and
beyond him.
It was nearly a year thereafter — I remember
150 THE ANOINTED MAN
the date, because it was that of my last visit
to Eilanmore — that I understood more fully.
I was walking westward with Alison towards
sundown. The light was upon his face as
though it came from within ; and when I
looked again, half in awe, I saw that there
was no glamour out of the west, for the even-
ing was dull and threatening rain. He was
in sorrow. Three months before, his brothers
Allan and William had been drowned ; a
month later, his brother Robert had sickened,
and now sat in the ingle from morning till
the covering of the peats, a skeleton almost,
shivering, and morosely silent, with large star-
ing eyes. On the large bed in the room
above the kitchen old Robert Achanna lay,
stricken with paralysis. It would have been
unendurable for me but for Alison and James,
and, above all, for my loved girl-friend, Anne
Gillespie, Achanna's niece, and the sunshine
of his gloomy household.
As I walked with Alison I was conscious
of a well-nigh intolerable depression. The
house we had left was so mournful ; the bleak
sodden pastures were so mournful ; so mourn-
ful was the stony place we were crossing,
THE ANOINTED MAN 151
silent but for the thin crying of the curlews ;
and, above all, so mournful was the sound of
the ocean as, unseen, it moved sobbingly round
the isle : so beyond words distressing was all
this to me, that I stopped abruptly, meaning
to go no farther, but to return to the house,
where at least there was warmth, and where
Anne would sing for me as she spun.
But when I looked up into my companion's
face I saw in truth the light that shone from
within. His eyes were upon a forbidding
stretch of ground, where the blighted potatoes
rotted among a wilderness of round skull-white
stones. I remember them still, these strange
far-blue eyes, lamps of quiet joy, lamps of
peace they seemed to me.
" Are you looking at Achnacarn ? " (as the
tract was called), I asked, in what I am sure
was a whisper.
" Yes," replied Alison slowly ; " I am look-
ing. It is beautiful — beautiful. O God, how
beautiful is this lovely world ! "
I know not what made me act so, but I
threw myself on a heathery ridge close by,
and broke out into convulsive sobbings.
Alison stooped, lifted me in his strong arms,
152 THE ANOINTED MAN
and soothed me with soft, caressing touches
and quieting words.
"Tell me, my fawn, what is it? What is
the trouble?" he asked again and again.
" It is you — it is you, Alison," I managed
to say coherently at last. " It terrifies me to
hear you speak as you did a little ago. You
must be fey. Why — why do you call that
hateful, hideous field beautiful on this dreary
day — and — and after all that has happened,
— O Alison?"
At this, I remember, he took his plaid and
put it upon the wet heather, and then drew
me thither, and seated himself and me beside
him.
" Is it not beautiful, my fawn ? " he asked,
with tears in his eyes. Then, without waiting
for my answer, he said quietly, " Listen, dear,
and I will tell you."
He was strangely still — breathless, he seemed
to me — for a minute or more. Then he
spoke.
" I was little more than a child — a boy just
in my teens — when something happened, some-
thing that came down the Rainbow-Arches of
Cathair - Slth." He paused here, perhaps to
THE ANOINTED MAN 153
see if I followed, which I did, familiar as I
was with all fairy- lore. " I was out upon the
heather, in the time when the honey oozes in
the bells and cups. I had always loved the
island and the sea. Perhaps I was foolish,
but I was so glad with my joy that golden
day that I threw myself on the ground and
kissed the hot, sweet ling, and put my hands
and arms into it, sobbing the while with my
vague, strange yearning. At last I lay still,
nerveless, with my eyes closed. Suddenly I
was aware that two tiny hands had come up
through the spires of the heather, and were
pressing something soft and fragrant upon my
eyelids. When I opened them, I could see
nothing unfamiliar. No one was visible. But
I heard a whisper : ' Arise and go away from
this place at once ; and this night do not
venture out, lest evil befall you.' So I rose,
trembling, and went home. Thereafter I was
the same, and yet not the same. Never could
I see as they saw, what my father and brothers
or the isle-folk looked upon as ugly or dreary.
My father was wroth me many times, and
called me a fool. Whenever my eyes fell
upon those waste and desolated spots, they
154 THE ANOINTED MAN
seemed to me passing fair, radiant with lovely
light. At last my father grew so bitter that,
mocking me the while, he bade me go to
the towns and see there the squalor and
sordid hideousness wherein men dwelled. But
thus it was with me : in the places they call
slums, and among the smoke of factories and
the grime of destitution, I could see all that
other men saw, only as vanishing shadows.
What I saw was lovely, beautiful with strange
glory, and the faces of men and women were
sweet and pure, and their souls were white.
So, weary and bewildered with my unwilling
quest, I came back to Eilanmore. And on
the day of my home-coming, Morag was there
— Morag of the Falls. She turned to my
father and called him blind and foolish. ' He
has the white light upon his brows,' she said
of me ; * I can see it, like the flicker-light in
a wave when the wind 's from the south in
thunder-weather. He has been touched with
the Fairy Ointment. The Guid Folk know
him. It will be thus with him till the day
of his death, if a duinshee can die, being
already a man dead yet born anew. He
upon whom the Fairy Ointment has been
THE ANOINTED MAN 155
laid must see all that is ugly and hideous
and dreary and bitter through a glamour of
beauty. Thus it hath been since the Mhic-
Alpine ruled from sea to sea, and thus is it
with the man Alison your son.'
" That is all, my fawn ; and that is why my
brothers, when they are angry, sometimes call
me the Anointed Man."
"That is all." Yes, perhaps. But oh, Alison
Achanna, how often have I thought of that
most precious treasure you found in the
heather, when the bells were sweet with
honey-ooze! Did the wild bees know of it?
Would that I could hear the soft hum of
their gauzy wings.
Who of us would not barter the best of
all our possessions — and some there are who
would surrender all — to have one touch laid
upon the eyelids — one touch of the Fairy
Ointment? But the place is far, and the
hour is hidden. No man may seek that for
which there can be no quest.
Only the wild bees know of it ; but I think
they must be the bees of Magh-Mell. And
there no man that liveth may wayfare — yet.
THE DAN-NAN-RON
To Grant Alien
When Anne Gillespie, that was my friend in
Eilanmore, left the island after the death of
her uncle, the old man Robert Achanna, it
was to go far west.
Among the men of the outer isles who for
three summers past had been at the fishing
off Eilanmore, there was one named Manus
MacCodrum, He was a fine lad to see, but
though most of the fisher-folk of the Lewis
and North Uist are fair, either with reddish
hair and grey eyes or blue-eyed and yellow-
haired, he was of a brown skin with dark hair
and dusky brown eyes. He was, however, as
unlike to the dark Celts of Arran and the
Inner Hebrides as to the Northmen. He
came of his people, sure enough. All the
MacCodrums of North Uist had been brown-
skinned and brown-haired and brown-eyed ;
and herein may have lain the reason why,
in bygone days, this small clan of Uist
156
i.
THE D A N - N A N - R O N 157
was known throughout the Western Isles as
the Sliochd nan Ron, the offspring of the
Seals.
Not so tall as most of the North Uist
and Long Island men, Manus MacCodrum
was of a fair height and supple and strong.
No man was a better fisherman than he, and
he was well-liked of his fellows, for all the
morose gloom that was upon him at times.
He had a voice as sweet as a woman's when
he sang, and he sang often, and knew all the
old runes of the islands, from the Obb of
Harris to the Head of Mingulay. Often,
too, he chanted the beautiful orain spioradail
of the Catholic priests and Christian Brothers
of South Uist and Barra, though where he
lived in North Uist he was the sole man
who adhered to the ancient faith.
It may have been because Anne was a
Catholic too, though, sure, the Achannas were
so also, notwithstanding that their forebears
and kindred in Galloway were Protestant (and
this because of old Robert Achanna's love for
his wife, who was of the old Faith, so it is
said) — it may have been for this reason,
though I think her lover's admiring eyes and
158 THE DAN-NAN-RON
soft speech and sweet singing had more to do
with it, that she pledged her troth to Manus.
It was a south wind for him, as the saying
is ; for with her rippling brown hair and
soft grey eyes and cream-white skin, there
was no comelier lass in the Isles.
So when Achanna was laid to his long
rest, and there was none left upon Eilanmore
save only his three youngest sons, Manus
MacCodrum sailed north-eastward across the
Minch to take home his bride. Of the four
eldest sons, Alison had left Eilanmore some
months before his father died, and sailed
westward, though no one knew whither, or
for what end, or for how long, and no word
had been brought from him, nor was he ever
seen again in the island, which had come to
be called Eilan-nan-Allmharachain, the Isle
of the Strangers. Allan and William had
been drowned in a wild gale in the Minch ;
and Robert had died of the white fever, that
deadly wasting disease which is the scourge
of the Isles. Marcus was now " Eilanmore,"
and lived there with Gloom and Sheumais,
all three unmarried, though it was rumoured
among the neighbouring islanders that each
THE DAN-NAN-RON 159
loved Marsail nic Ailpean,* in Eilean - Rona
of the Summer Isles, hard by the coast of
Sutherland.
When Manus asked Anne to go with him
she agreed. The three brothers were ill-
pleased at this, for apart from their not
wishing their cousin to go so far away, they
did not want to lose her, as she not only
cooked for them and did all that a woman
does, including spinning and weaving, but
was most sweet and fair to see, and in the
long winter nights sang by the hour together,
while Gloom played strange wild airs upon
his /eat/an, a kind of oaten -pipe or flute.
She loved him, I know ; but there was this
reason also for her going, that she was afraid
of Gloom. Often upon the moor or on the
hill she turned and hastened home, because
she heard the lilt and fall of that feadati.
It was an eerie thing to her, to be going
through the twilight when she thought the
three men were in the house smoking after
their supper, and suddenly to hear beyond and
• Marsail nic Ailpean is the Gaelic of which an English
translation would be Marjory MacAlpine. Nic is a contraction
for nighcan mhic, " daughter of the line of."
i6o THE DAN-NAN-RON
coming towards her the shrill song of that
oaten flute playing " The Dance of the Dead,"
or " The Flow and Ebb," or " The Shadow-
Reel."
That, sometimes at least, he knew she was
there was clear to her, because as she stole
rapidly through the tangled fern and gale she
would hear a mocking laugh follow her like
a leaping thing.
Manus was not there on the night when
she told Marcus and his brothers that she
was going. He was in the haven on board
the Luath, with his two mates, he singing in
the moonshine as all three sat mending their
fishing gear.
After the supper was done, the three
brothers sat smoking and talking over an offer
that had been made about some Shetland
sheep. For a time Anne watched them in
silence. They were not like brothers, she
thought. Marcus, tall, broad-shouldered, with
yellow hair and strangely dark blue - black
eyes and black eyebrows ; stern, with a
weary look on his sun-brown face. The light
from the peats glinted upon the tawny curve
of thick hair that trailed from his upper lip,
THE DAN-NAN-RON i6i
for he had the caiscan-feusag of the North-
men, Gloom, sh'ghter of build, dark of hue
and hair, but with hairless face ; with thin,
white, long - fingered hands, that had ever a
nervous motion as though they were tide-
wrack. There was always a frown on the
centre of his forehead, even when he smiled
with his thin lips and dusky, unbetraying
eyes. He looked what he was, the brain of
the Achannas. Not only did he have the
English as though native to that tongue,
but could and did read strange unnecessary
books. Moreover, he was the only son of
Robert Achanna to whom the old man had
imparted his store of learning ; for Achanna
had been a schoolmaster in his youth in
Galloway, and he had intended Gloom for the
priesthood. His voice, too, was low and clear,
but cold as pale-green water running under
ice. As for Sheumais, he was more like
Ma»-cus than Gloom, though not so fair. He
had the same brown hair and shadowy hazel
eyes, the same pale and smooth face, with
something of the same intent look which
characterised the long-time missing and prob-
ably dead eldest brother, Alison. He, too,
L
i62 THE DAN-NAN- RON
was tall and gaunt. On Sheumais' face there
was that indescribable, as to some of course
imperceptible, look which is indicated by the
phrase, " the dusk of the shadow," though
few there are who know what they mean by
that, or, knowing, are fain to say.
Suddenly, and without any word or reason
for it. Gloom turned and spoke to her.
"Well, Anne, and what is it?"
" I did not speak. Gloom."
" True for you, mo cailinn. But it 's about
to speak you were."
"Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you
Gloom, and you Sheumais, I have that to tell
which you will not be altogether glad for
the hearing. 'Tis about . . . about ... me
and . . . and Manus."
There was no reply at first. The three
brothers sat looking at her, like the kye at
a stranger on the moorland. There was a
deepening of the frown on Gloom's brow, but
when Anne looked at him his eyes fell and
dwelt in the shadow at his feet. Then Marcus
spoke in a low voice.
" Is it Manus MacCodrum you will be
meaning ? "
THE D A N - N A N - R O N 163
"Ay, sure."
Again, silence. Gloom did not lift his eyes,
and Sheumais was now staring at the peats.
Marcus shifted uneasily.
" And what will Mdnus MacCodrum be
wanting?"
" Sure, Marcus, you know well what I mean.
Why do you make this thing hard for me ?
There is but one thing he would come here
wanting ; and he has asked me if I will go
with him, and I have said yes. And if you
are not willing that he come again with the
minister, or that we go across to the kirk in
Berneray of Uist in the Sound of Harris,
then I will not stay under this roof another
night, but will go away from Eilanmore at
sunrise in the Lnath, that is now in the haven.
And that is for the hearing and knowing,
Marcus and Gloom and Sheumais ! "
Once more, silence followed her speaking.
It was broken in a strange way. Gloom
slipped his feadan into his hands, and so to
his mouth. The clear cold notes of the flute
filled the flame-lit room. It was as though
white polar birds were drifting before the
coming of snow.
i64 THE DAN-NAN-RON
The notes slid into a wild remote air :
cold moonlight on the dark o' the sea, it was.
It was the Dan-nan- Ron.
Anne flushed, trembled, and then abruptly
rose. As she leaned on her clenched right
hand upon the table, the light of the peats
showed that her eyes were aflame.
" Why do you play that, Gloom Achanna ? "
The man finished the bar, then blew into
the oaten pipe, before, just glancing at the
girl, he replied:
"And what harm will there be in that,
Anna-ban ? "
"You know it is harm. That is the D^n-
nan-Ron ! "
" Ay ; and what then, Anna-ban ? "
"What then? Are you thinking I don't
know what you mean by playing the Song
of the Seal ? "
With an abrupt gesture Gloom put the
feadan aside. As he did so, he rose.
"See here, Anne," he began roughly — when
Marcus intervened.
"That will do just now, Gloom. Ann-^-
ghraidh, do you mean that you are going to
do this thing?"
THE DAN - NAN - RON 165
"Ay, sure."
" Do you know why Gloom played the Dan-
nan-Ron ? "
"It was a cruel thing."
" You know what is said in the isles about
. . . about . . . this or that man, who is
under ghcasaii — who is spell-bound . . . and
. . . and . . . about the seals and ..."
" Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am :
' Tha iad a! cantuinn giir h-e daoine fo gheasan
a th' anus 110 roin.' "
" ' T/iey say that sealsl " he repeated slowly ;
" * t/iey say that seals are men under magic
spells' And have you ever pondered that
thing, Anne, my cousin ? "
" I am knowing well what you mean."
"Then you will know that the MacCodrums
of North Uist are called the Sliochd-nan-ron ? "
" I have heard."
" And would you be for marrying a man
that is of the race of the beasts, and that
himself knows what geas means, and may any
day go back to his people ? "
" Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock
of me you are. Neither you nor any here
believes that foolish thing. How can a man
i66 THE DAN-NAN-RON
born of a woman be a seal, even though his
sinnsear were the offspring of the sea-people, —
which is not a saying I am believing either,
though it may be : and not that it matters
much, whatever, about the far-back forebears."
Marcus frowned darkly, and at first made no
response. At last he answered, speaking sullenly.
"You may be believing this or you may be
believing that, Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig, but two
things are as well known as that the east
wind brings the blight and the west wind
the rain. And one is this : that long ago a
Seal-man wedded a woman of North Uist,
and that he or his son was called Neil
MacCodrum ; and that the sea-fever of the
seal was in the blood of his line ever after.
And this is the other : that twice within the
memory of living folk a MacCodrum has
taken upon himself the form of a seal, and
has so met his death — once Neil MacCodrum of
Ru' Tormaid, and once Anndra MacCodrum of
Berneray in the Sound. There 's talk of others,
but these are known of us all. And you will
not be forgetting now that Neil-donn was the
grandfather, and that Anndra was the brother
of the father of Manus MacCodrum?"
THE DAN -NAN -RON 167
" I am not caring what you say, Marcus :
it is all foam of the sea."
"There's no foam without wind or tide, Anne.
An' it 's a dark tide that will be bearing you
away to Uist; and a black wind that will be
blowing far away behind the East, the wind
that will be carrying his death-cry to your ears."
The girl shuddered. The brave spirit in
her, however, did not quail.
" Well, so be it. To each his fate. But,
seal or no seal, I am going to wed Manus
MacCodrum, who is a man as good as any
here, and a true man at that, and the man
I love, and that will be my man, God willing,
the praise be His ! "
Again Gloom took up the fcadan, and sent
a few cold white notes floating through the
hot room, breaking suddenly into the w^ild
fantastic opening air of the Dan-nan-Ron.
With a low cry and passionate gesture Anne
sprang forward, snatched the oat-flute from his
grasp, and xyould have thrown it in the fire.
Marcus held her in an iron grip, however.
" Don't you be minding Gloom, Anne," he
said quietly, as he took the feadan from her
hand, and handed it to his brother ; " sure,
i68 THE DAN-NAN-RON
he's only telling you in his way what I am
telling you in mine,"
She shook herself free, and moved to the
other side of the table. On the opposite wall
hung the dirk which had belonged to old
Achanna. This she unfastened. Holding it
in her right hand, she faced the three men.
" On the cross of the dirk I swear I will
be the woman of Manus MacCodrum."
The brothers made no response. They looked
at her fixedly.
"And by the cross of the dirk I swear that
if any man come between me and Manus, this
dirk will be for his remembering in a certain
hour of the day of the days."
As she spoke, she looked meaningly at
Gloom, whom she feared more than Marcus
or Sheumais.
" And by the cross of the dirk I swear that
if evil come to Manus, this dirk will have
another sheath, and that will be my milkless
breast : and by that token I now throw the
old sheath in the fire."
As she finished, she threw the sheath on
to the burning peats.
Gloom quietly lifted it, brushed off the
THE I) A N - N A N - R O N 169
sparks of flame as though they were dust, and
put it in his pocket.
" And by the same token, Anne," he said,
"your oaths will come to nought."
Rising, he made a sign to his brothers to
follow. When they were outside he told
Sheumais to return, and to keep Anne within,
by peace if possible — by force if not. Briefly
they discussed their plans, and then separated.
While Sheumais went back, Marcus and Gloom
made their way to the haven.
Their black figures were visible in the
moonlight, but at first they were not noticed
by the men on board the Luaih, for Manus
was singing.
When the isleman stopped abruptly, one of
his companions asked him jokingly if his song
had brought a seal alongside, and bid him
beware lest it was a woman of the sea-people.
He gloomed morosely, but made no reply.
When the others listened, they heard the wild
strain of the Dan -nan -Ron stealing through
the moonshine. Staring against the shore,
they could discern the two brothers.
" What will be the meaning of that ? " asked
one of the men uneasily.
170 THE DAN-NAN-RON
"When a man comes instead of a woman,"
answered Manus slowly, "the young corbies
are astir in the nest."
So, it meant blood. Aulay MacNeill and
Donull MacDonull put down their gear, rose,
and stood waiting for what Manus would
do.
"Ho, there!" he cried.
" Ho-ro ! "
" What will you be wanting, Eilanmore ? "
"We are wanting a word of you, Manus
MacCodrum. Will you come ashore ? "
"If you want a word of me, you can come
to me."
"There is no boat here."
"I'll send the bdta-beag."
When he had spoken, Manus asked Donull,
the younger of his mates, a lad of seventeen,
to row to the shore.
" And bring back no more than one man,"
he added, " whether it be Eilanmore himself
or Gloom-mhic-Achanna."
The rope of the small boat was unfastened,
and Donull rowed it swiftly through the moon-
shine. The passing of a cloud dusked the
shore, but they saw him throw a rope for the
THE DAN - NAN - RON 171
guiding of the boat along.sidc the ledge of
the landing-place ; then the sudden darkening
obscured the vision. Donull must be talking,
they thought; for two or three minutes elapsed
without sign: but at last the boat put off again,
and with two figures only. Doubtless the lad
had had to argue against the coming of both
Marcus and Gloom.
This, in truth, was what Donull had done.
But while he was speaking, Marcus was staring
fixedly beyond him.
" Who is it that is there ? " he asked ; " there,
in the stern ? "
" There is no one there."
" I thought I saw the shadow of a man."
" Then it was my shadow, Eilanmore."
Achanna turned to his brother.
" I see a man's death there in the boat."
Gloom quailed for a moment, then laughed low.
" I see no death of a man sitting in the boat,
Marcus ; but if I did, I am thinking it would
dance to the air of the Dan-nan-Ron, which is
more than the wraith of you or me would do."
"It is not a wraith I was seeing, but the
death of a man."
Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded
172 THE DAN-NAN-RON
sullenly. The next moment a heavy muffler
was round Donull's mouth, and before he
could resist, or even guess what had happened,
he was on his face on the shore, bound and
gagged. A minute later the oars were taken
by Gloom, and the boat moved swiftly out of
the inner haven.
As it drew near through the gloom Manus
stared at it intently.
"That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay!"
" No ; it will be Gloom Achanna, I 'm
thinking."
MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure
at the stern was too big for Donull. The
cloud passed just as the boat came alongside.
The rope was made secure, and then Marcus
and Gloom sprang on board.
" Where is Donull MacDonull ? " demanded
Manus sharply.
Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered
for him.
" He has gone up to the house with a mes-
sage to Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig."
" And what will that message be ? "
*' That Manus MacCodrum has sailed away
from Eilanmore, and will not see her again."
THE DAN -NAN -RON 173
MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly
laugh.
" Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be tak-
ing that feadan of yours and playing the
Codhail-nan-Pairtean, for I'm thinkin' the
crabs are gathering about the rocks down
below us, an' laughing wi' their claws."
" Well, and that is a true thing," Gloom re-
plied, slowly and quietly. " Yes, for sure I
might, as you say, be playing the Meeting
of the Crabs. Perhaps," he added, as by a
sudden afterthought, " perhaps, though it is
a calm night, you will be hearing the comh-
thonn. The ' slapping of the waves ' is a
better thing to be hearing than the Meeting
of the Crabs."
"If I hear the coinh-thonn, it is not in the
way you will be meaning. Gloom 'ic Achanna.
'Tis not the ' up sail and good-bye ' they
will be saying, but ' Home wi' the Bride.' "
Here Marcus intervened.
" Let us be having no more words, Manus
MacCodrum. The girl Anne is not for you.
Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence.
If you will be going quiet, it is quiet we will
be. If you have your feet on this thing, then
174 THE DAN-NAN-RON
you will be having that too which I saw in
the boat."
" And what was it you saw in the boat,
Achanna ? "
" The death of a man."
"So . . . And now" (this after a pro-
longed silence, wherein the four men stood
facing each other), " is it a blood-matter, if not
of peace?"
" Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, 'tis
your own death you will be making."
There was a flash as of summer lightning.
A bluish flame seemed to leap through the
moonshine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping
cry ; then, leaning back till his face blanched
in the moonlight, his knees gave way. As
he fell, he turned half round. The long knife
which M^nus had hurled at him had not
penetrated his breast more than two inches
at most, but as he fell on the deck it was
driven into him up to the hilt.
In the blank silence that followed, the three
men could hear a sound like the ebb-tide in
sea -weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody
froth in the lungs of the dead man.
The first to speak was his brother, and
THE DAN -NAN -RON 175
then only when thin reddish-white foam-bubbles
began to burst from the blue lips of Marcus.
"It is murder."
He spoke low, but it was like the surf of
breakers in the ears of those who heard.
" You have said one part of a true word,
Gloom Achanna. It is murder . . . that you
and he came here for."
" The death of Marcus Achanna is on you,
Manus MacCodrum."
" So be it, as between yourself and me, or
between all of your blood and me ; though
Aulay MacNeill as well as you can witness
that, though in self-defence I threw the knife
at Achanna, it was his own doing that drove
it into him."
" You can whisper that to the rope when it
is round your neck."
" And what will yon be doing now, Gloom-
nic-Achanna ? "
For the first time Gloom shifted uneasily.
A swift glance revealed to him the awkward
fact that the boat trailed behind the Luath,
so that he could not leap into it ; while if he
turned to haul it close by the rope, he was
at the mercy of the two men.
176 THE DAN-NAN-RON
" I will go in peace," he said quietly.
" Ay," was the answer, in an equally quiet
tone : " in the white peace."
Upon this menace of death the two men
stood facing each other.
Achanna broke the silence at last.
"You'll hear the Dan-nan-Ron the night
before you die, Manus MacCodrum : and, lest
you doubt it, you'll hear it again in your
death-hour."
"Ma tha sin an Dan — if that be ordained."
Manus spoke gravely. His very quietude,
however, boded ill. There was no hope of
clemency. Gloom knew that.
Suddenly he laughed scornfully. Then,
pointing with his right hand as if to someone
behind his two adversaries, he cried out: "Put
the death-hand on them, Marcus! Give them
the Grave!"
Both men sprang aside, the heart of each
nigh upon bursting. The death-touch of the
newly slain is an awful thing to incur, for it
means that the wraith can transfer all its evil
to the person touched.
The next moment there was a heavy splash.
In a second Manus realised that it was no
THE DAN -NAN -RON 177
more tlian a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped.
With feverish haste he hauled in the small
boat, leaped into it, and began at once to row
so as to intercept his enemy.
Achanna rose once, between him and the
Luath. MacCodrum crossed the oars in the
thole-pins, and seized the boat-hook.
The swimmer kept straight for him. Sud-
denly he dived. In a flash, Manus realised
that Gloom was going to rise under the boat,
seize the keel, and upset him, and thus
probably be able to grip him from above.
There was time and no more to leap : and,
indeed, scarce had he plunged into the sea
ere the boat swung right over, Achanna clam-
bering over it the next moment.
At first Gloom could not see where his foe
was. He crouched on the upturned craft, and
peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at
once a black mass shot out of the shadow
between him and the smack. This black mass
laughed : the same low, ugly laugh that had
preceded the death of Marcus.
He who was in turn the swimmer was now
close. When a fathom away he leaned back
and began to tread water steadily. In his
M
178 THE DAN-NAN-RON
right hand he grasped the boat-hook. The
man in the boat knew that to stay where he
was meant certain death. He gathered himself
together Hke a crouching cat. Manus kept
treading the water slowly, but with the hook
ready so that the sharp iron spike at the end
of it should transfix his foe if he came at him
with a leap. Now and again he laughed.
Then in his low sweet voice, but brokenly at
times, between his deep breathings, he began
to sing :
The tide was dark, an' heavy with the burden that it bore,
I heard it talking whispering upon the weedy shore :
Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing door,
'Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more,
My Grief,
No more !
The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore ;
The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o'er and o'er ;
The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient lore,
I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core,
My Grief,
Its core !
The white sea-waves were wan and grey, its ashy lips before.
The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with streaming
gore—
O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar,
Since one thou hast, O dark, dim sea, why callest thou for more.
My Grief,
For more !
THE DAN - NAN - RON 179
In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its
long slow cadences, sung as no other man in
the Isles could sing it, sounded sweet and
remote beyond words to tell. The glittering
shine was upon the water of the haven, and
moved in waving lines of fire along the stone
ledges. Sometimes a fish rose, and spilt a
ripple of pale gold ; or a sea-nettle swam to
the surface, and turned its blue or greenish
globe of living jelly to the moon dazzle.
The man in the water made a sudden stop
in his treading, and listened intently. Then
once more the phosphorescent light gleamed
about his slow-moving shoulders. In a louder
chanting voice came once again.
Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door,
'Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more,
My Grief,
No more !
Yes, his quick ears had caught the inland
strain of a voice he knew. Soft and white as
the moonshine came Anne's singing, as she
passed along the corrie leading to the haven.
In vain his travelling gaze sought her : she
was still in the shadow, and, besides, a slow
drifting cloud obscured the moonlight. When
i8o THE DAN -NAN -RON
he looked back again, a stifled exclamation
came from his lips. There was not a sign of
Gloom Achanna. He had slipped noiselessly
from the boat, and was now either behind it, or
had dived beneath it, or was swimming under
water this way or that. If only the cloud
would sail by, muttered Manus, as he held
himself in readiness for an attack from beneath
or behind. As the dusk lightened, he swam
slowly towards the boat, and then swiftly
round it. There was no one there. He
climbed on to the keel, and stood, leaning
forward as a salmon-leisterer by torchlight,
with his spear - pointed boat - hook raised.
Neither below nor beyond could he discern
any shape. A whispered call to Aulay Mac-
Neill showed that he, too, saw nothing. Gloom
must have swooned, and sank deep as he
slipped through the water. Perhaps the dog-
fish were already darting about him.
Going behind the boat, Manus guided it back
to the smack. It was not long before, with
MacNeill's help, he righted the punt. One
oar had drifted out of sight, but as there
was a sculling hole in the stern, that did not
matter.
TIIK DAN-NAN-RON i8i
" What shall we do with it ? " he mut-
tered, as he stood at last by the corpse
of Marcus. " This is a bad night for us,
Aulay ! "
" Bad it is ; but let us be seeing it is not
worse. I 'm thinking we should have left the
boat."
"And for why that?"
" We could say that Marcus Achanna and
Gloom Achanna left us again, and that we
saw no more of them nor of our boat."
MacCodrum pondered a while. The sound
of voices, borne faintly across the water,
decided him. Probably Anne and the lad
Donull were talking. He slipped into the
boat, and with a sail-knife soon ripped it here
and there. It filled, and then, heavy with
the weight of a great ballast - stone which
Aulay had first handed to his companion,
and surging with a foot-thrust from the latter,
it sank.
" We '11 hide the . . . the man there . . . be-
hind the windlass, below the spare sail, till
we're out at sea, Aulay. Quick, give me a
hand ! "
It did not take the two men long to lift
i82 THE DAN-NAN-RON
the corpse and do as M^nus had suggested.
They had scarce accomplished this when
Anne's voice came hailing silver-sweet across
the water.
With death-white face and shaking limbs
MacCodrum stood holding the mast, while
with a loud voice so firm and strong that Aulay
MacNeill smiled below his fear, he asked if
the Achannas were back yet, and, if so, for
Donull to row out at once, and she with him
if she would come.
It was nearly half- an -hour thereafter that
Anne rowed out towards the Luath. She had
gone at last along the shore to a creek where
one of Marcus' boats was moored, and
returned with it. Having taken Donull on
board, she made way with all speed, fearful
lest Gloom or Marcus should intercept her.
It did not take long to explain how she
had laughed at Sheumais' vain efforts to
detain her, and had come down to the haven.
As she approached, she heard M^nus singing,
and so had herself broken into a song she
knew he loved. Then, by the water - edge,
she had come upon Donull lying upon his
back, bound and gagged. After she had
THE DAN-NAN-RON 183
released him, they waited to see what would
happen, but as in the moonlight they could
not see any small boat come in — bound to
or from the smack — she had hailed to know
if Manus were there.
On his side, he said briefly that the two
Achannas had come to persuade him to leave
without her. On his refusal, they had de-
parted again, uttering threats against her as
well as himself. He heard their quarrelling
voices as they rowed into the gloom, but
could not see them at last because of the
obscured moonlight.
" And now, Ann-mochree," he added, " is
it coming with me you are, and just as you
are ? Sure, you '11 never repent it, and
you '11 have all you want that I can give.
Dear of my heart, say that you will be
coming away this night of the nights ! By
the Black Stone on Icolmkill I swear it,
and by the Sun, and by the Moon, and by
Himself!"'
" I am trusting you, M^nus dear. Sure,
it is not for me to be going back to that
house after what has been done and said. I
go with you, now and always, God save us."
1^
i84 THE DAN-NAN-RON
"Well, dear lass o' my heart, it's farewell
to Eilanmore it is, for by the Blood on the
Cross I '11 never land on it again ! "
"And that will be no sorrow to me, Manus
my home ! "
And this was the way that my friend Anne
Gillespie left Eilanmore to go to the isles of
the west.
It was a fair sailing in the white moon-
shine with a whispering breeze astern. Anne
leaned against Manus, dreaming her dream.
The lad Donull sat drowsing at the helm.
Forward, Aulay MacNeill, with his face set
against the moonshine to the west, brooded
dark.
Though no longer was land in sight, and
there was peace among the deeps of the quiet
stars and upon the sea, the shadow of fear
was upon the face of Manus MacCodrum.
This might well have been because of the
as yet unburied dead that lay beneath the
spare sail by the windlass. The dead man,
however, did not affright him. What went
moaning in his heart, and sighing and call-
ing in his brain, was a faint falling echo
THE DAN -NAN -RON 185
he had heard as the LuatJi glided slow out
of the haven. Whether from the water or
from the shore he could not tell, but he heard
the wild fantastic air of the Dan-nan-Ron,
as he had heard it that very night upon the
feadan of Gloom Achanna.
It was his hope that his ears had played him
false. When he glanced about him and saw
the sombre flame in the eyes of Aulay Mac-
Neill, staring at him out of the dusk, he knew
that which Oisin, the son of Fionn, cried in
his pain : " his soul swam in mist."
II
For all the evil omens, the marriage of Anne
and Manus MacCodrum went well. He was
more silent than of yore, and men avoided
rather than sought him ; but he was happy
with Anne, and content with his two mates,
who were now Galium MacCodrum and Ranald
MacRanald. The youth Donull had bettered
himself by joining a Skye skipper, who was
a kinsman ; and Aulay MacNeill had surprised
everyone except Manus by going away as
i86 THE DAN-NAN-RON
a seaman on board one of the Loch line of
ships which sail for Australia from the Clyde.
Anne never knew what had happened,
though it is possible she suspected somewhat.
All that was known to her was that Marcus
and Gloom Achanna had disappeared, and
were supposed to have been drowned. There
was now no Achanna upon Eilanmore, for
Sheumais had taken a horror of the place
and his loneliness. As soon as it was com-
monly admitted that his two brothers must
have drifted out to sea, and been drowned, or
at best picked up by some ocean-going ship,
he disposed of the island-farm, and left Eilan-
more for ever. All this confirmed the thing
said among the islanders of the West — that
old Robert Achanna had brought a curse with
him. Blight and disaster had visited Eilan-
more over and over in the many years he
had held it, and death, sometimes tragic or
mysterious, had overtaken six of his seven
sons, while the youngest bore upon his brows
the " dusk of the shadow." True, none knew
for certain that three out of the six were
dead, but few for a moment believed in the
possibility that Alison and Marcus and Gloom
THE DAN-NAX-ROX 1S7
were alive. On the night when Anne had left
the island with Minus MacCodrum he, Shcu-
mais, had heard nothing to alarm him. Even
when, an hour after she had gone down to
the haven, neither she nor his brothers had
returned, and the Luath had put out to sea,
he was not in fear of any ill. Clearly, Marcus
and Gloom had gone away in the smack,
perhaps determined to see that the girl was
duly married by priest or minister. He would
have perturbed himself little for days to come,
but for a strange thing that happened that
night. He had returned to the house because
of a chill that was upon him, and convinced,
too, that all had sailed in the Luath. He
was sitting brooding by the peat-fire, when he
was startled by a sound at the window at the
back of the room. A few bars of a familiar
air struck painfully upon his ear, though played
so low that they were just audible. What
could it be but the Dan-nan-R6n ; and who
would be playing that but Gloom ? What
did it mean ? Perhaps, after all, it was fantasy
only, and there was no feadan out there in
the dark. He was pondering this when, still
low, but louder and sharper than before, there
i88 THE DAN-NAN-RON
rose and fell the strain which he hated, and
Gloom never played before him, that of the
Davsa-na-mairv, the Dance of the Dead.
Swiftly and silently he rose and crossed the
room. In the dark shadows cast by the
byre he could see nothing ; but the music
ceased. He went out, and searched every-
where, but found no one. So he returned,
took down the Holy Book, and with awed
heart read slowly, till peace came upon him,
soft and sweet as the warmth of the peat-
glow.
But as for Anne, she had never even this
hint that one of the supposed dead might be
alive ; or that, being dead, Gloom might yet
touch a shadowy feadan into a wild, remote
air of the Grave.
When month after month went by, and no
hint of ill came to break upon their peace,
Manus grew light-hearted again. Once more
his songs were heard as he came back from
the fishing or loitered ashore mending his
nets. A new happiness was nigh to them,
for Anne was with child. True, there was
fear also, for the girl was not well at the
time when her labour was near, and grew
THE DAN-NAN-RON 189
weaker daily. There came a day when Manus
had to go to Loch Boisdale in South Uist ; and
it was with pain, and something of foreboding,
that he sailed away from Berneray in the Sound
of Harris, where he lived. It was on the
third night that he returned. He was met by
Katreen MacRanald, the wife of his mate, with
the news that, on the morrow after his going,
Anne had sent for the priest, who was stay-
ing at Loch Maddy, for she had felt the
coming of death. It was that very evening
she died, and took the child with her.
Manus heard as one in a dream. It seemed
to him that the tide was ebbing in his heart,
and a cold sleety rain falling, falling through
a mist in his brain.
Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the
earthing of her whom he loved he went to
and fro solitary ; often crossing the Narrows
and going to the old Pictish Tower under
the shadow of Ben Breac. He would not go
upon the sea, but let his kinsman Galium do
as he liked with the Luath.
Now and again Father Allan MacNeill
sailed northward to see him. Each time he
departed sadder. " The man is going mad,
190 THE DAN-NAN-RON
I fear," he said to Galium, the last time he
saw Manus.
The long summer nights brought peace and
beauty to the isles. It was a great herring-
year, and the moon-fishing was unusually good.
All the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest
were in their boats whenever they could. The
pollack, the dogfish, the otters, and the seals,
with flocks of sea-fowl beyond number, shared
in the common joy. Manus MacCodrum alone
paid no need to herring or mackerel. He
was often seen striding along the shore, and
more than once had been heard laughing.
Sometimes, too, he was come upon at low
tide by the great Reef of Berneray, singing
wild strange runes and songs, or crouching
upon a rock and brooding dark.
The midsummer moon found no man on
Berneray except MacCodrum, the Reverend
Mr Black, the minister of the Free Kirk, and
an old man named Anndra Mclan. On the
night before the last day of the middle month,
Anndra was reproved by the minister for
saying that he had seen a man rise out of
one of the graves in the kirkyard, and steal
down by the stone - dykes towards Balna-
THE DA N - N A N - R O N 191
hunnur-sa-mona,* where Manus MacCodium
li\c(l.
"The dead do not rise and walk, Anndra."
" That may be, maighstir ; but it may have
been the Watcher of the Dead. Sure, it is
not three weeks since Padruic McAlistair was
laid beneath the green mound. He'll be
wearying for another to take his place."
" Hoots, man, that is an old superstition.
The dead do not rise and walk, I tell you."
" It is right you may be, maighstir ; but I
heard of this from my father, that was old
before )'0U were young, and from his father
before him. When the last buried is weary
with being the Watcher of the Dead he goes
about from place to place till he sees man,
woman, or child with the death-shadow in the
eyes, and then he goes back to his grave and
lies down in peace, for his vigil it will be
over now."
The minister laughed at the folly, and went
into his house to make ready for the Sacra-
ment that was to be on the morrow. Old
Anndra, however, was uneasy. After the por-
* Bailie- tta-aonar'' sa inhonadhy " the solitary farm on the
hill-slope."
192 THE DAN-NAN-RON
ridge he went down through the gloaming to
Bahiahunnur-sa-mona. He meant to go in
and warn Manus MacCodrum. But when he
got to the west wall, and stood near the open
window, he heard Manus speaking in a loud
voice, though he was alone in the room.
"B'iongattntach do ghrddh dhomhsa, d toirt
barrachd air grddh nam ban / . . . "*
This Manus cried in a voice quivering with
pain. Anndra stopped still, fearful to intrude,
fearful also, perhaps, to see someone there
beside MacCodrum whom eyes should not
see. Then the voice rose into a cry of
agony.
" A Oram dhuit, ay an deigh dhomh fas
aosda ! " t
With that Anndra feared to stay. As he
passed the byre he started, for he thought he
saw the shadow of a man. When he looked
closer he could see nought, so went his way
trembling and sore troubled.
It was dusk when Manus came out. He
saw that it was to be a cloudy night, and
* "Thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of
women."
t " I shall worship thee, ay even after I have become old."
THE DAN-NAN-RON 193
perhaps it was tliis that, after a brief while,
made him turn in his aimless walk and go
back to the house. He was sitting before
the flaming heart of the peats, brooding in
his pain, when, suddenly, he sprang to his
feet.
Loud and clear, and close as though played
under the very window of the room, came
the cold white notes of an oaten flute. Ah,
too well he knew that wild fantastic air.
Who could it be but Gloom Achanna, play-
ing upon his feadan ; and what air of all
airs could that be but the Dan-nan-Ron?
Was it the dead man, standing there un-
seen in the shadow of the grave ? Was Marcus
beside him — Marcus with the knife still thrust
up to the hilt, and the lung-foam upon his
lips? Can the sea give up its dead? Can
there be strain of any feadan that ever was
made of man — there in the Silence?
In vain Manus MacCodrum tortured him-
self thus. Too well he knew that he had
heard the Dan-nan-Ron, and that no other
than Gloom Achanna was the player.
Suddenly an access of fury wrought him to
madness. With an abrupt lilt the tunc swung
N
194 THE DAN-NAN-RON
into the Davsa-na-mairv, and thence, after a
few seconds, and in a moment, into that
mysterious and horrible Codhail-nan-Pairtean
which none but Gloom played.
There could be no mistake now, nor as to
what was meant by the muttering, jerking air
of the " Gathering of the Crabs."
With a savage cry Manus snatched up a
long dirk from its place by the chimney, and
rushed out.
There was not the shadow of a sea-gull
even in front : so he sped round by the byre.
Neither was anything unusual discoverable
there.
" Sorrow upon me," he cried ; " man or
wraith, I will be putting it to the dirk ! "
But there was no one ; nothing ; not a
sound.
Then, at last, with a listless droop of his
arms, MacCodrum turned and went into the
house again. He remembered what Gloom
Achanna had said : " You 'II hear the Dan-
nan-Rbn the night before you die^ Manus
MacCodrum^ and lest you doubt it, you HI hear
it in your death-hour^
He did not stir from the fire for three
I
THE DAN -NAN -RON 195
hours ; then he rose, and went over to his
bed and lay down without undressing.
He did not sleep, but lay listening and
watching. The peats burned low, and at last
there was scarce a flicker along the floor.
Outside he could hear the wind moaning
upon the sea. By a strange rustling sound
he knew that the tide was ebbing across the
great reef that runs out from Berneray. By
midnight the clouds had gone. The moon
shone clear and full. When he heard the
clock strike in its worm-eaten, rickety case, he
sat up, and listened intently. He could hear
nothing. No shadow stirred. Surely if the
wraith of Gloom Achanna were waiting for
him it would make some sign, now, in the
dead of night.
An hour passed. Manus rose, crossed the
room on tip-toe, and soundlessly opened the
door. The salt - wind blew fresh against his
face. The smell of the shore, of wet sea-
wrack and pungent gale, of foam and moving
water, came sweet to his nostrils. He heard
a skua calling from the rocky promontory.
From the slopes behind, the w^ail of a moon-
restless lapwing rose and fell mournfully.
196 THE DAN-NAN -RON
Crouching, and with slow, stealthy step, he
stole round by the seaward wall. At the dyke
he stopped, and scrutinised it on each side.
He could see for several hundred yards, and
there was not even a sheltering sheep. Then,
soundlessly as ever, he crept close to the byre.
He put his ear to chink after chink ; but not
a stir of a shadow even. As a shadow, himself,
he drifted lightly to the front, past the hay-
rick : then, with swift glances to right and
left, opened the door and entered. As he
did so, he stood as though frozen. Surely, he
thought, that was a sound as of a step, out
there by the hay-rick, A terror was at his
heart. In front, the darkness of the byre,
with God knows what dread thing awaiting
him: behind, a mysterious walker in the night,
swift to take him unawares. The trembling
that came upon him was nigh overmastering.
At last, with a great effort, he moved towards
the ledge, where he kept a candle. With
shaking hand he struck a light. The empty
byre looked ghostly and fearsome in the flick-
ering gloom. But there was no one, nothing.
He was about to turn, when a rat ran along
a loose hanging beam, and stared at him, or
THE DAN -NAN -RON 197
at the yellow shine. He saw its black eyes
shining like peat-water in moonlight.
The creature was curious at first, then
indifferent. At least, it began to squeak, and
then make a swift scratching with its fore-
paws. Once or twice came an answering
squeak : a faint rustling was audible here and
there among the straw.
With a sudden spring M^nus seized the
beast. Even in the second in which he raised
it to his mouth, and scrunched its back with
his strong teeth, it bit him severely. He let
his hands drop, and grope furtively in the
darkness. With stooping head he shook the
last breath out of the rat, holding it with his
front teeth, with back-curled lips. The next
moment he dropped the dead thing, trampled
upon it, and burst out laughing. There was
a scurrying of pattering feet, a rustling of
straw. Then silence again. A draught from the
door had caught the flame and extinguished
it. In the silence and darkness MacCodrum
stood, intent but no longer afraid. He laughed
again, because it was so easy to kill with the
teeth. The noise of his laughter seemed to
him to leap hither and thither like a shadowy
198 THE DAN-NAN-RON
ape. He could see it : a blackness within the
darkness. Once more he laughed. It amused
him to see the thing leaping about like that.
Suddenly he turned, and walked out into
the moonlight. The lapwing was still circling
and wailing. He mocked it, with loud, shrill
pee-weety, pee-weety, pee-weet. The bird swung
waywardly, alarmed : its abrupt cry, and
dancing flight, aroused its fellows. The air
was full of the lamentable crying of plovers.
A sough of the sea came inland. M^nus
inhaled its breath with a sigh of delight.
A passion for the running wave was upon
him. He yearned to feel green water break
against his breast. Thirst and hunger, too,
he felt at last, though he had known neither
all day. How cool and sweet, he thought,
would be a silver haddock, or even a brown-
backed liath, alive and gleaming wet with
the sea -water still bubbling in its gills. It
would writhe, just like the rat ; but then
how he would throw his head back, and
toss the glittering thing up into the moon-
light, catch it on the downwhirl just as it
neared the wave on whose crest he was, and
then devour it with swift voracious gulps !
THE DAN-NAN-RON 199
With quick jerky steps he made his way
past the landward side of the small thatch-
roofed cottage. He was about to enter,
when he noticed that the door, which he
had left ajar, was closed. He stole to the
window and glanced in.
A single thin, wavering moonbeam flickered
in the room. But the flame at the heart of
the peats had worked its way through the
the ash, and there was now a dull glow,
though that was within the " smooring," and
threw scarce more than a glimmer into the
room.
There was enough light, however, for Manus
MacCodrum to see that a man sat on the
three-legged stool before the fire. His head
was bent, as though he were listening. The
face was away from the window. It was
his own wraith, of course — of that Manus felt
convinced. What was it doing there? Per-
haps it had eaten the Holy Book, so that
it was beyond his putting a rosad on it !
At the thought, he laughed loud. The
shadow-man leaped to his feet.
The next moment MacCodrum swung him-
self on to the thatched roof, and clambered
200 THE DAN-NAN-RON
from rope to rope, where these held down
the big stones which acted as dead - weight
for the thatch against the fury of tempests.
Stone after stone he tore from its fastenings,
and hurled to the ground over and beyond
the door. Then, with tearing hands, he
began to burrow an opening in the thatch.
All the time he whined like a beast.
He was glad the moon shone full upon
him. When he had made a big enough
hole, he would see the evil thing out of
the grave that sat in his room, and would
stone it to death.
Suddenly he became still. A cold sweat
broke out upon him. The things whether
his own wraith, or the spirit of his dead foe,
or Gloom Achanna himself, had begun to
play, low and slow, a wild air. No piercing
cold music like that of the feadan ! Too
well he knew it, and those cool white notes
that moved here and there in the darkness
like snowflakes. As for the air, though he
slept till Judgment Day and heard but a
note of it amidst all the clamour of heaven
and hell, sure he would scream because of
the Dan - nan - R6n !
THE DAN -NAN -RON 201
The Dan-nan-R(bn: the Roin ! the Seals!
Ah, what was he doing there, on the bitter-
weary land ! Out there was the sea. Safe
would he be in the green waves.
With a leap he was on the ground. Seiz-
ing a huge stone he hurled it through the
window. Then, laughing and screaming, he
fled towards the Great Reef, along whose
sides the ebb-tide gurgled and sobbed, with
glistering white foam.
He ceased screaming or laughing as he
heard the Dan-nan-Ron behind him, faint,
but following ; sure, following. Bending low,
he raced towards the rock-ledges from which
ran the reef.
When at last he reached the extreme
ledge, he stopped abruptly. Out on the
reef he saw from ten to twenty seals, some
swimming to and fro, others clinging to the
reef, one or two making a curious barking
sound, with round heads lifted against the
moon. In one place there was a surge and
lashing of water. Two bulls were fighting
to the death.
With swift stealthy movements Manus un-
clothed himself. The damp had clotted the
202 THE DAN-NAN -RON
leathern thongs of his boots, and he snarled
with curled lip as he tore at them. He shone
white in the moonshine, but was sheltered
from the sea by the ledge behind which he
crouched. " What did Gloom Achanna mean
by that," he muttered savagely, as he heard
the nearing air change Into the " Dance of
the Dead." For a moment Manus was a
man again. He was nigh upon turning to
face his foe, corpse or wraith or living body,
to spring at this thing which followed him,
and tear it with hands and teeth. Then,
once more, the hated Song of the Seal stole
mockingly through the night.
With a shiver he slipped into the dark
water. Then, with quick, powerful strokes,
he was in the moon-flood, and swimming
hard against it out by the leeside of the
reef.
So intent were the seals upon the fight
of the two great bulls that they did not
see the swimmer, or, if they did, took him
for one of their own people. A savage
snarling and barking and half- human crying
came from them. Manus was almost within
reach of the nearest, when one of the com-
THE DAN-NAN-RON 203
batants sank dead, with torn throat. The
victor clambered on to the reef, and leaned
high, swaying its great head and shoulders
to and fio. In the moonlight its white
fangs were like red coral. Its blinded eyes
ran with gore.
There was a rush, a rapid leaping and
swirling, as M^nus surged in among the
seals, which were swimming round the place
where the slain bull had sunk.
The laughter of this long white seal
terrified them.
When his knee struck against a rock,
MacCodrum groped with his arms and hauled
himself out of the water.
From rock to rock and ledge to ledge
he went, with a fantastic dancing motion,
his body gleaming foam-white in tlie moon-
shine.
As he pranced and trampled along the
weedy ledges, he sang snatches of an old
rune — the lost rune of the MacCodrums of
Uist. The seals on the rocks crouched
spell-bound : those slow-swimming in the water
stared with brown unwinking eyes, with their
small ears strained against the sound : —
204 THE DAN-NAN-RON
It is I, Manus MacCodrum,
I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood.
And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you !
Ay, ay, Manus my name is, Manus MacManus !
It is I myself, and no other,
Your brother, O Seals of the Sea !
Give me blood of the red fish,
And a bite of the flying sgadan :
The green wave on my belly.
And the foam in my eyes !
I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,
Bull-better than any of you, snarling bulls !
Come to me, mate, seal of the soft furry womb,
White am I still, though red shall I be.
Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me !
Aoh, aoh, aoh, aro, aro, ho-ro !
A man was I, a seal am I,
My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips :
Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea ;
Give way, for I am fey of the sea
And the sea-maiden I see there.
And my name, true, is Manus MacCodrum,
The bull-seal that was a man, Ara ! Ara !
By this time he was close upon the great
black seal, which was still monotonously sway-
ing its gory head, with its sightless eyes rolling
this way and that. The sea - folk seemed
fascinated. None moved, even when the dancer
in the moonshine trampled upon them.
When he came within arm-reach he stopped.
" Are you the Ceann - Cinnidh ? " he cried.
THE DAN-NAN-RON 205
"Are you the head of this clan of the sea-
folk ? "
The huge beast ceased its swaying. Its
curled lips moved from its fangs.
" Speak, Seal, if there 's no curse upon
you ! Maybe, now, you '11 be Anndra him-
self, the brother of my father ! Speak !
H'st — are you heari7ig that music on the
shore ! 'Tis the Dan-nan-Ron ! Death o'
my soul, it 's the Dan-nan-R6n ! Aha, 'tis
Gloom Achanna out of the Grave. Back,
beast, and let me move on ! "
With that, seeing the great bull did not
move, he struck it full in the face with
clenched fist. There was a hoarse strangling
roar, and the seal champion was upon him
with lacerating fangs.
Manus swayed this way and that. All
he could hear now was the snarling and
growling and choking cries of the maddened
seals. As he fell, they closed in upon him.
His screams wheeled through the night like
mad birds. With desperate fury he struggled
to free himself. The great bull pinned him
to the rock ; a dozen others tore at his
white flesh, till his spouting blood made the
2o6 THE DAN-NAN-RON
rocks scarlet in the white shine of the
moon.
For a few seconds he still fought savagely,
tearing with teeth and hands. Once, a red
irrecognisable mass, he staggered to his knees.
A wild cry burst from his lips, when from the
shore-end of the reef came loud and clear
the lilt of the rune of his fate.
The next moment he was dragged down
and swept from the reef into the sea. As
the torn and mangled body disappeared
from sight, it was amid a seething crowd of
leaping and struggling seals, their eyes wild
with affright and fury, their fangs red with
human gore.
And Gloom Achanna, turning upon the
reef, moved swiftly inland, playing low on
his fcadan as he went.
GREEN BRANCHES
In the year that followed the death of Manus
MacCodrum, James Achanna saw nothing of
his brother Gloom. He might have thought
himself alone in the world, of all his people,
but for a letter that came to him out of the
west. True, he had never accepted the com-
mon opinion that his brothers had both been
drowned on that night when Anne Gillespie
left Eilanmore with Manus. In the first place,
he had nothing of that inner conviction con-
cerning the fate of Gloom which he had con-
cerning that of Marcus ; in the next, had he
not heard the sound of the feadan, which no
one that he knew played, except Gloom ; and,
for further token, was not the tune that which
he hated above all others — the Dance of the
Dead — for who but Gloom would be playing
that, he hating it so, and the hour being late,
and no one else on Eilanmore ? It was no
sure thing that the dead had not come back ;
207
2o8 GREEN BRANCHES
but the more he thought of it the more
Achanna believed that his sixth brother was
still alive. Of this, however, he said nothing
to anyone.
It was as a man set free that, at last, after
long waiting and patient trouble with the dis-
posal of all that was left of the Achanna
heritage, he left the island. It was a grey
memory for him. The bleak moorland of it,
the blight that had lain so long and so often
upon the crops, the rains that had swept the
isle for grey days and grey weeks and grey
months, the sobbing of the sea by day and
its dark moan by night, its dim relinquishing
sigh in the calm of dreary ebbs, its hollow
baffling roar when the storm-shadow swept up
out of the sea, one and all oppressed him,
even in memory. He had never loved the
island, even when it lay green and fragrant
in the green and white seas under white and
blue skies, fresh and sweet as an Eden of the
sea. He had ever been lonely and weary,
tired of the mysterious shadow that lay upon
his folk, caring little for any of his brothers
except the eldest — long since mysteriously gone
out of the ken of man — and almost hating
GREEN BRANCHES 209
Gloom, who had ever borne him a grudge
because of his beauty, and because of his like-
ness to and reverent heed for Alison. More-
over, ever since he had come to love Katreen
Macarthur, the daughter of Donald Macarthur
who lived in Sleat of Skye, he had been eager
to live near her ; the more eager as he knew
that Gloom loved the girl also, and wished for
success not only for his own sake, but so as
to put a slight upon his younger brother.
So, when at last he left the island, he sailed
southward gladly. He was leaving Eilanmore ;
he was bound to a new home in Skye, and
perhaps he was going to his long-delayed, long
dreamed-of happiness. True, Katreen was not
pledged to him ; he did not even know for
sure if she loved him. He thought, hoped,
dreamed, almost believed that she did ; but
then there was her cousin Ian, who had long
wooed her, and to whom old Donald Mac-
arthur had given his blessing. Nevertheless,
his heart would have been lighter than it had
been for long, but for two things. First, there
was the letter. Some weeks earlier he had
received it, not recognising the writing, because
of the few letters he had ever seen, and, more-
O
210 GREEN BRANCHES
over, as it was in a feigned hand. With diffi-
culty he had deciphered the manuscript, plain
printed though it was. It ran thus : —
" Well, Sheumais, my brother, it is wondering
if I am dead, you will be. Maybe ay and
maybe no. But I send you this writing to
let you see that I know all you do and think
of. So you are going to leave Eilanmore
without an Achanna upon it? And you will
be going to Sleat in Skye? Well, let me be
telling you this thing. Do not go. I see blood
there. And there is this, too : neither you nor
any man shall take Katreen away from me.
You know that ; and Ian Macarthur knows
it ; and Katreen knows it : and that holds
whether I am alive or dead. I say to you :
do not go. It will be better for you and for
all. Ian Macarthur is away in the north-sea
with the whaler-captain who came to us at
Eilanmore, and will not be back for three
months yet. It will be better for him not to
come back. But if he comes back he will
have to reckon with the man who says that
Katreen Macarthur is his. I would rather not
have two men to speak to, and one my brother.
I does not matter to you where I am. It
GREEN BRANCHES 211
want no money just now. But put aside my
portion for me. Have it ready for me against
the day I call for it. I will not be patient
that day : so have it ready for me. In the
place that I am I am content. You will be
saying : why is my brother away in a remote
place (I will say this to you : that it is not
farther north than St Kilda nor farther south
than the Mull of Cantyre !), and for what
reason ? That is between me and silence. But
perhaps you think of Anne sometimes. Do
you know that she lies under the green grass?
And of Manus MacCodrum ? They say that
he swam out into the sea and was drowned ;
and they whisper of the seal-blood, though the
minister is wroth with them for that. He calls
it a madness. Well, I was there at that mad-
ness, and I played to it on my feadan. And
now, Sheumais, can you be thinking of what
the tune was that I played?
" Your brother, who waits his own day,
" Gloom."
" Do not be forgetting this thing : / would
rather not be playing the ' Damhsa-na-mairbh!
It was an ill hour for Mcinus when he heard
212 GREEN BRANCHES
the D^n-nan-R6n ; it was the song of his
soul, that ; and yours is the Davsa-na-Mairv."
This letter was ever in his mind : this,
and what happened in the gloaming when
he sailed away for Skye in the herring-
smack of two men who lived at Armadale
in Sleat. For, as the boat moved slowly out
of the haven, one of the men asked him if
he was sure that no one was left upon the
island ; for he thought he had seen a figure
on the rocks, waving a black scarf. Achanna
shook his head, but just then his companion
cried that at that moment he had seen the
same thing. So the smack was put about,
and when she was moving slow through the
haven again, Achanna sculled ashore in the little
coggly punt. In vain he searched here and
there, calling loudly again and again. Both
men could hardly have been mistaken, he
thought. If there were no human creature
on the island, and if their eyes had not played
them false, who could it be? The wraith of
Marcus, mayhap ; or might it be the old man
himself (his father), risen to bid farewell to
his youngest son, or to warn him?
GREEN BRANCHES 213
It was no use to wait longer ; so, looking
often behind him, he made his way to the
boat again, and rowed slowly out towards
the smack.
Jerk— Jerk— Jerk across the water came, low
but only too loud for him, the opening bars
of the Damhsa-na-Mairbh. A horror came
upon him, and he drove the boat through
the water so that the sea splashed over the
bows. When he came on deck he cried in
a hoarse voice to the man next him to put
up the helm, and let the smack swing to the
wind.
"There is no one there, Galium Campbell,"
he whispered.
" And who is it that will be making that
strange music?"
"What music?"
" Sure, it has stopped now, but I heard it
clear, and so did Anndra MacEwan. It was
like the sound of a reed-pipe, and the tune
was an eerie one at that."
" It was the Dance of the Dead."
" And who will be playing that ? " asked
the man, with fear in his eyes.
" No living man."
214 GREEN BRANCHES
" No living man ? "
" No. I 'm thinking it will be one of my
brothers who was drowned here, and by the
same token that it is Gloom, for he played
upon the feadan ; but if not, then . . .
then ..."
The two men waited in breathless silence,
each trembling with superstitious fear ; but at
last the elder made a sign to Achanna to finish.
"Then ... it will be the Kelpie."
"Is there ... is there one of the . . .
the cave- women here?"
" It is said ; and you know of old that the
Kelpie sings or plays a strange tune to wile
seamen to their death."
At that moment, the fantastic jerking music
came loud and clear across the bay. There
was a horrible suggestion in it, as if dead
bodies were moving along the ground with
long jerks, and crying and laughing wild. It
was enough ; the men, Campbell and MacEwan,
would not now have waited longer if Achanna
had offered them all he had in the world.
Nor were they, or he, out of their panic haste
till the smack stood well out at sea, and not
a sound could be heard from Eilanmore.
GREEN BRANCHES 215
They stood watching, silent. Out of the
dusky mass that lay in the seaward way to
the north came a red gleam. It was like an
eye staring after them with blood-red glances.
" What is that, Achanna ? " asked one of the
men at last.
" It looks as though a fire had been lit
in the house up in the island. The door
and the window must be open. The fire
must be fed with wood, for no peats would
give that flame ; and there were none lit
when I left. To my knowing, there was no
wood for burning except the wood of the
shelves and the bed."
" And who would be doing that ? "
" I know of that no more than you do,
Galium Campbell."
No more was said, and it was a relief to
all when the last glimmer of the light was
absorbed in the darkness.
At the end of the voyage Campbell and
MacEwan were well pleased to be quit of
their companion ; not so much because he
was moody and distraught, as because they
feared that a spell was upon him — a fate in
the working of which they might become
2i6 GREEN BRANCHES
involved. It needed no vow of the one to
the other for them to come to the conclusion
that they would never land on Eilanmore, or, if
need be, only in broad daylight, and never alone.
The days went well for James Achanna,
where he made his home at Ranza-beag, on
Ranza Water in the Sleat of Skye. The
farm was small but good, and he hoped
that with help and care he would soon
have the place as good a farm as there
was in all Skye.
Donald Macarthur did not let him see
much of Katreen, but the old man was no
longer opposed to him. Sheumais must wait
till Ian Macarthur came back again, which
might be any day now. For sure, James
Achanna of Ranza-beag was a very different
person from the youngest of the Achanna-
folk who held by on lonely Eilanmore ;
moreover, the old man could not but think
with pleasure that it would be well to see
Katreen able to walk over the whole land
of Ranza, from the cairn at the north of his
own Ranza-Mor to the burn at the south of
Ranza-beag, and know it for her own.
GREEN BRANCHES 217
But Achanna was ready to wait. Even
before he had the secret word of Katrccii he
knew from her beautiful dark eyes that she
loved him. As the weeks went by they
managed to meet often, and at last Katreen
told him that she loved him too, and would
have none but him ; but that they must wait
till Ian came back, because of the pledge
given to him by her father. They were days
of joy for him. Through many a hot noon-
tide hour, through many a gloaming, he went
as one in a dream. Whenever he saw a
birch swaying in the wind, or a wave leaping
upon Loch Liath, that was near his home, or
passed a bush covered with wild roses, or saw
the moonbeams lying white on the boles of
the pines, he thought of Katreen : his fawn
for grace, and so lithe and tall, with sun-
brown face and wavy dark mass of hair and
shadowy eyes and rowan-red lips. It is said
that there is a god clothed in shadow who
goes to and fro among the human kind,
putting silence between lovers with his waving
hands, and breathing a chill out of his cold
breath, and leaving a gulf of deep water flow-
ing between them because of the passing of
2i8 GREEN BRANCHES
his feet. That shadow never came their way.
Their love grew as a flower fed by rains and
warmed by sunlight.
When midsummer came, and there was no
sign of Ian Macarthur, it was already too late.
Katreen had been won.
During the summer months, it was the
custom for Katreen and two of the farm girls
to go up Maol - Ranza, to reside at the
shealing of Cnoc-an-Fhraoch : and this because
of the hill-pasture for the sheep. Cnoc-an-
Fhraoch is a round, boulder - studded hill
covered with heather, which has a precipitous
corrie on each side, and in front slopes down
to Lochan Fraoch, a lochlet surrounded by
dark woods. Behind the hill, or great hillock
rather, lay the shealing. At each week-end
Katreen went down to Ranza-Mor, and on
every Monday morning at sunrise returned to
her heather -girt eyrie. It was on one of
these visits that she endured a cruel shock.
Her father told her that she must marry
some one else than Sheumais Achanna. He
had heard words about him which made a
union impossible, and, indeed, he hoped that
the man would leave Ranza-beag. In the
GREEN BRANCHES 219
end, he admitted that what he had heard
was to the effect that Achaniia was under a
doom of some kind ; that he was involved in
a blood feud ; and, moreover, that he was fey.
The old man would not be explicit as to the
person from whom his information came, but
hinted that he was a stranger of rank, prob-
ably a laird of the isles. Besides this, there
was word of Ian Macarthur. He was at
Thurso, in the far north, and would be in
Skye before long, and he — her father — had
written to him that he might wed Katreen as
soon as was practicable.
" Do you see that lintie yonder, father ? "
was her response to this.
" Ay, lass ; and what about the birdeen ? "
" Well, when she mates with a hawk, so
will I be mating with Ian Macarthur, but not
till then."
With that she turned, and left the house,
and went back to Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. On the
way she met Achanna.
It was that night that, for the first time,
he swam across Lochan Fraoch to meet
Katreen.
The quickest way to reach the shealing was
220 GREEN BRANCHES
to row across the lochlet, and then ascend by
a sheep-path that wound through the hazel
copses at the base of the hill. Fully half-an-
hour was thus saved, because of the steepness
of the precipitous corries to right and left.
A boat was kept for this purpose, but it was
fastened to a shore-boulder by a padlocked
iron chain, the key of which was kept by
Donald Macarthur. Latterly he had refused
to let this key out of his possession. For one
thing, no doubt, he believed he could thus
restrain Achanna from visiting his daughter.
The young man could not approach the
shealing from either side without being seen.
But that night, soon after the moon was
whitening slow in the dark, Katreen stole
down to the hazel copse and awaited the
coming of her lover. The lochan was visible
from almost any point on Cnoc-an-Fhraoch,
as well as from the south side. To cross it
in a boat unseen, if any watcher were near,
would be impossible, nor could even a swimmer
hope to escape notice unless in the gloom of
night, or, mayhap, in the dusk. When, how-
ever, she saw, half way across the water, a
spray of green branches slowly moving athwart
GREEN BRANCHES 221
the surface, she knew that Sheumais was keep-
ing his tryst. If, perchance, any one else saw,
he or she would never guess that those derelict
rowan-branches shrouded Sheumais Achanna.
It was not till the estray had drifted close
to the ledge, where, hid among the bracken
and the hazel undergrowth, she awaited him,
that Katreen descried the face of her lover,
as with one hand he parted the green sprays
and stared longingly and lovingly at the figure
he could just discern in the dim fragrant
obscurity.
And as it was this night, so was it on many
of the nights that followed. Katreen spent
the days as in a dream. Not even the news
of her cousin lan's return disturbed her
much.
One day the inevitable meeting came. She
was at Ranza-M6r, and when a shadow came
into the dairy where she was standing she
looked up, and saw Ian before her. She
thought he appeared taller and stronger than
ever, though still not so tall as Sheumais, who
would appear slim beside the Herculean Skye
man. But as she looked at his close curling
black hair, and thick bull neck, and the sullen
222 GREEN BRANCHES
eyes in his dark wind-red face, she wondered
that she had ever tolerated him at all.
He broke the ice at once.
" Tell me, Katreen, are you glad to see me
back again?"
" I am glad that you are home once more
safe and sound."
" And will you make it my home for me by
coming to live with me, as I 've asked you
again and again."
" No, as I 've told you again and again."
He gloomed at her angrily for a few moments
before he resumed.
" I will be asking you this one thing, Kat-
reen, daughter of my father's brother : do you
love that man Achanna who lives at Ranza-
beag?"
" You may ask the wind why it is from the
east or the west, but it won't tell you. You 're
not the wind's master."
"If you think I will let this man take you
away from me, you are thinking a foolish
thing."
" And you saying a foolisher."
"Ay?"
" Ay, sure. What could you do, lan-mhic-
GREEN BRANCHES 223
Ian ? At the worst, you could do no more
than kill James Achanna. What then ? I
too would die. You cannot separate us. I
would not marry you, now, though you were the
last man on the world and I the last woman."
" You 're a fool, Katreen Macarthur. Your
father has promised you to me, and I tell you
this : if you love Achanna you '11 save his
life only by letting him go away from here.
I promise you he will not be here long."
" Ay, you promise me ; but you will not
say that thing to James Achanna's face. You
are a coward."
With a muttered oath the man turned on
his heel.
" Let him beware o' me, and you, too,
Katreen-mo-nighean-donn. I swear it by my
mother's grave and by St Martin's Cross that
you will be mine by hook or by crook."
The girl smiled scornfully. Slowly she
lifted a milk-pail.
" It would be a pity to waste the good
milk, Ian-g6rach ; but if you don't go it is
I that will be emptying the pail on you, and
then you '11 be as white without as your heart
is within."
224 GREEN BRANCHES
" So, you call me witless, do you ? lan-gorach !
Well, we shall be seeing as to that ; and as for
the milk, there will be more than milk spilt
because of j^ou, Katreen-donn."
From that day, ,though neither Sheumais nor
Katreen knew of it, a watch was set upon
Achanna.
It could not be long before their secret was
discovered ; and it was with a savage joy over-
mastering his sullen rage that Ian Macarthur
knew himself the discoverer, and conceived
his double vengeance. He dreamed, gloatingly,
on both the black thoughts that roamed like
ravenous beasts through the solitudes of his
heart. But he did not dream that another
man was filled with hate because of Katreen's
lover — another man who had sworn to make
her his own ; the man who, disguised, was
known in Armadale as Donald McLean, and
in the north isles would have been hailed as
Gloom Achanna.
There had been steady rain for three days,
with a cold raw wind. On the fourth the
sun shone, and set in peace. An evening of
quiet beauty followed, warm, fragrant, dusky
from the absence of moon or star, though the
GREEN BRANCHES 225
thin veils of mist promised to disjierse as
the night grew.
There were two men that eve in the under-
growth on the south side of the lochlet. Sheu-
mais had come earHer than his wont. Impatient
for the dusk, he could scarce await the waning
of the afterglow. Surely, he thought, he might
venture. Suddenly his ears caught the sound
of cautious footsteps. Could it be old Donald,
perhaps, w-ith some inkling of the way in
which his daughter saw her lover, in despite of
all ; or, mayhap, might it be Ian Macarthur
tracking him, as a hunter stalking a stag by
the water-pools? He crouched, and waited. In
a few minutes he saw Ian carefully picking
his way. The man stooped as he descried
the green branches ; smiled as, with a low
rustling, he raised them from the ground.
Meanwhile, yet another man watched and
waited, though on the farther side of the
lochan, where the hazel copses were. Gloom
Achanna half hoped, half feared the approach
of Katreen. It would be sweet to see her
again, sweet ■ to slay her lover before her
eyes, brother to him though he was. But,
there was the chance that she might descry
P
226 GREEN BRANCHES
him, and, whether recognisingly or not, warn
the swimmer. So it was that he had come
there before sundown, and now lay crouched
among the bracken underneath a projecting
mossy ledge close upon the water, where it
could scarce be that she or any should see
him.
As the gloaming deepened, a great still-
ness reigned. There was no breath of wind.
A scarce audible sigh prevailed among the
spires of the heather. The churring of a night-
jar throbbed through the darkness. Some-
where a corncrake called its monotonous
crik-craik — the dull harsh sound emphasising
the utter stillness. The pinging of the gnats
hovering over and among the sedges made
an incessant rumour through the warm sultry
air.
There was a splash once as of a fish ; then
silence. Then a lower but more continuous
splash, or rather wash of water. A slow
susurrus rustled through the dark.
Where he lay among the fern Gloom
Achanna slowly raised his head, stared through
the shadows, and listened intently. If Katreen
were waiting there she was not near.
GREEN BRANCHES 227
Noiselessly he slid into the water. When
he rose it was under a clump of green branches.
These he had cut and secured three hours
before. With his left hand he swam slowly,
or kept his equipoise in the water ; with his
right he guided the heavy rowan bough. In
his mouth were two objects, one long and
thin and dark, the other with an occasional
glitter as of a dead fish.
His motion was scarce perceptible. None the
less he was nigh the middle of the loch almost
as soon the other clump of green branches.
Doubtless the swim.mer beneath it was confid-
ent that he was now safe from observation.
The two clumps of green branches drew
nearer. The smaller seemed a mere estray —
a spray blown down by the recent gale. But
all at once the larger clump jerked awkwardly
and stopped. Simultaneously a strange low
strain of music came from the other.
The strain ceased. The two clumps of green
branches remained motionless. Slowly at last
the larger moved forward. It was too dark
for the swimmer to see if any one lay hid
behind the smaller. When he reached it he
thrust aside the leaves.
228 GREEN BRANCHES
It was as though a great salmon leaped.
There was a splash, and a narrow dark body
shot through the gloom. At the end of it
something gleamed. Then suddenly there
was a savage struggle. The inanimate green
branches tore this way and that, and surged
and swirled. Gasping cries came from the
leaves. Again and again the gleaming thing
leaped. At the third leap an awful scream
shrilled through the silence. The echo of it
wailed thrice with horrible distinctness in the
corrie beyond Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. Then, after a
faint splashing, there was silence once more.
One clump of green branches drifted loosely up
the lochlet. The other moved steadily towards
the place whence, a brief while before, it had
stirred.
Only one thing lived in the heart of Gloom
Achanna — the joy of his exultation. He had
killed his brother Sheumais. He had always
hated him because of his beauty ; of late he
had hated him because he had stood between
him, Gloom, and Katreen Macarthur, because
he had become her lover. They were all
dead now except himself — all the Achannas.
He was " Achanna." When the day came
GREEN BRANCHES 229
that he would go back to Galloway there
would be a magpie on the first birk, and a
screaming jay on the first rowan, and a croak-
ing raven on the first fir. Ay, he would be
their suffering, though they knew nothing of
him meanwhile ! He would be Achanna of
Achanna again. Let those who would stand
in his way beware. As for Katreen : perhaps
he would take her there, perhaps not. He
smiled.
These thoughts were the wandering fires in
his brain while he slowly swam shoreward
under the floating green branches, and as he
disengaged himself from them, and crawled
upward through the bracken. It was at this
moment that a third man entered the water
from the farther shore.
Prepared as he was to come suddenly
upon Katreen, Gloom was startled when, in
a place of dense shadow, a hand touched his
shoulder, and her voice whispered, " Sheuviais,
Sheumais ! "
The next moment she was in his arms. He
could feel her heart beating against his side.
"What was it, Sheumais? What was that
awful cry?" she whispered.
230 GREEN BRANCHES
For answer he put his lips to hers, and
kissed her again and again.
The girl drew back. Some vague instinct
warned her.
"What is it, Sheumais? Why don't you
speak ? "
He drew her close again.
" Pulse of my heart, it is I who love you —
I who love you best of all. It is I, Gloom
Achanna ! "
With a cry, she struck him full in the face.
He staggered, and in that moment she freed
herself.
"You coward!"
"Katreen, I . . . "
" Come no nearer. If you do, it will be the
death of you ! "
"The death o' me! Ah, bonnie fool that
you are, and is it you that will be the death
o' me ? "
"Ay, Gloom Achanna, for I have but to
scream and Sheumais will be here, an' he
would kill you like a dog if he knew you
did me harm."
"Ah, but if there were no James, or any
man, to come between me an' my will!"
GREEN BRANCHES 231
" Then there would be a woman ! Ay, if
you overbore me I would strangle you with
my hair, or fix my teeth in your false throat ! "
" I was not for knowing you were such a
wild-cat ! But I '11 tame you yet, my lass !
Aha, wild-cat ! " and, as he spoke, he laughed
low.
" It is a true word, Gloom of the black
heart. I a7)i a wild-cat, and like a wild-cat I
am not to be seized by a fox, and that you
will be finding to your cost, by the holy
St Bridget ! But now, off with you, brother
of my man ! "
" Your man ... ha ! ha ! ... "
" Why do you laugh ? "
" Sure, I am laughing at a warm white lass
like yourself having a dead man as your
lover ! "
"A . . . dead . . . man?"
No answer came. The girl shook with a
new fear. Slowly she drew closer till her
breath fell warm against the face of the
other. He spoke at last.
" Ay, a dead man."
"It is a lie."
" Where would you be that you were not
232 GREEN BRANCHES
hearing his goodbye ? I 'm thinking it was
loud enough ! "
" It is a He . . . it is a lie ! "
"No, it is no lie. Sheumais is cold enough
now. He's low among the weeds by now.
Ay, by now ; down there in the lochan."
" What . . . you, j/on devil! Is it for
killing your own brother you would be ! "
" I killed no one. He died his own way.
Maybe the cramp took him. Maybe . . .
maybe a kelpie gripped him. I watched. I
saw him beneath the green branches. He
was dead before he died. I saw it in the
white face o' him. Then he sank. He's
dead — James is dead. Look here, girl, I 've
always loved you. I swore the oath upon
you — you 're mine. Sure, you 're mine now,
Katreen ! It is loving you I am ! It will
be a south wind for you from this day, muir-
nean inochree ! See here, I '11 show you how
I . . . "
" Back . . . back . . . murderer ! "
" Be stopping that foolishness now, Katreen
Macarthur ! By the Book, I am tired of it !
I am loving you, and it 's having you for
mine I am ! And if you won't come to me
M
GREEN BRANCHES 233
like the dove to its mate, I '11 come to you
like the hawk to the dove ! "
With a spring he was upon her. In vain
she strove to beat him back. His arms held
her as a stoat grips a rabbit.
He pulled her head back, and kissed her
throat till the strangulating breath sobbed
against his ear. With a last despairing effort
she screamed the name of the dead man —
" Sheumais ! SJieuviais I Sheumais ! " The man
who struggled with her laughed.
" Ay, call aw^ay ! The herrin' will be com-
ing through the bracken as soon as Sheumais
comes to your call ! Ah, it is mine you are
now, Katreen ! He 's dead an' cold, . . .
an' you 'd best have a living man ... an'
She fell back, her balance lost in the sudden
releasing. What did it mean? Gloom still
stood there, but as one frozen. Through the
darkness she saw at last that a hand gripped
his shoulder — behind him a black mass vaguely
obtruded.
For some moments there was absolute
silence. Then a hoarse voice came out of
the dark.
234 GREEN BRANCHES
"You will be knowing now who it is,
Gloom Achanna ! "
The voice was that of Sheumais, who lay
dead in the lochan. The murderer shook as
in a palsy. With a great effort, slowly he
turned his head. He saw a white splatch —
the face of the corpse. In this white splatch
flamed two burning eyes, the eyes of the soul
of the brother whom he had slain.
He reeled, staggered as a blind man, and,
free now of that awful clasp, swayed to and
fro as one drunken.
Slowly Sheumais raised an arm, and pointed
downward through the wood towards the
lochan. Still pointing, he moved swiftly
forward. With a cry like a beast, Gloom
Achanna swung to one side, stumbled, rose,
and leaped into the darkness.
For some minutes Sheumais and Katreen
stood, silent, apart, listening to the crashing
sound of his flight — the race of the murderer
against the pursuing shadow of the Grave.
THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
THE BIRDEEN
SILK O" THE KINE
Ei mo Aislmg
THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
There are not many of the Gaelic folk of
Lochfyneside in Argj^'U who could tell the
story of Ethlenn Stuart ; perhaps few, even,
who could point out the particular rocky
promontory, to this day (although upon no
map) called Ard-Ethlenn, some thirty miles
or less up the wild and beautiful western
coast of Loch Fyne, between Crarae Point
and the Ceann - More. Ard - EtJilam, Creag-
alcen : meaningless names these to the few
strangers who might chance to hear them
from any fisherman of Strachur or Stra-
lachlan. But to those who know who and
what Ethlenn Stuart was, and the story of
her love for Ian Mclan, the mountain - poet,
who is known as Ian Mor of the Hills,
and the end of their tragic joy, and the
last sleep of her against the sun — for such
as these " Ard - Ethlenn " and " Creagaleen,"
237
238 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
"Creag-Gdusain" and " Maol-Lde-y-a-ghrian,"
are names with a hauntinsr music.
My own knowledge of " the Daughter of
the Sun," as Ethlenn was called by the
imaginative people of the glens — partly after
a poem by Ian Mor addressed to her under
that name, partly because of her passionate
love of sunlight and the hill wind and the
sea, but mainly, I understand, because she
herself was a poet, "a poet of the fire of
love, and so a Daughter of the Sun," as one
of the old Celtic folk-poems has it — this
knowledge was largely derived from Dionaid
MacDiarmid, the married sister of Ian. Dionaid
herself, with her little cottage, are no longer
known of Strachur. Years ago the small
croft by the pine-wood behind Easter Creg-
gans was destroyed by a winter-gale, and
in time even the few poor fragmentary traces
of human occupation disappeared. The sum-
mer before the accident, Dionaid had become
weak and ailing ; in the autumn she died.
But, also, I knew Ian Mor. Often, as
a child, I met him upon the lonely hills
where I lived ; later, he would speak with
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 239
mc when he would have word of none, when
the gloom was upon him ; and I was with
him when he died.
We have all our dreams of impossible
love. Somewhere, sometimes, the impossible
happens. Then a man and a woman know
that oblivious rapture of love, the mirdhci,
the ecstacy of the life of dream paramount
over the ordinary human gladness of the
life of actuality. If ever there were man
and woman who were these flower -crowned
visionaries of love, Ian Mor Mclan and
Ethlenn Stuart were they.
I cannot tell any connected story of their
two lives, nor, sure, is there any need to do
so. The name and repute of Ian are with
his kindred and the hill-folk of his race :
he has his immortality by the flame - lit
ingle, in the byres of the straths, in twilight
haunts of lovers, in the mountain - shealings,
wherever the songs of Ian Mor, so passing
sweet and strange, are warm upon the lips
of young and old. In his last years he
was known among the people in Strachur-
more as lan-Aonaran, or as lan-mor-na-
240 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
aonar-sa-mhonadh — Ian the strange one, the
lonely one, or Ian the lonely one of the
hills, as, long ago, Ossian called a solitary
hill-druid aonaran liath nan creag, "the hoary
hermit of the rocks." No one ever ventured
to say that he was mad. All knew, however,
that, years agone, he had become distraught
through the passion of his love, which had
nigh killed him. At most, if a stronger
epithet than aonaran was used, which means
both "lonely" and "singular," his "dubhachas,"
his gloom, was gently alluded to, or the
cianalasy the mountain - melancholy, or that
strange shadow thrown across the mind
of man by nature, the " ciar nan cam"
the gloom of the rocks, as it is called by
the hill - people. Young and old held in
reverence this man who dwelt on high, and
communed more with the swift fires of
sunrise and the slow flames of sunset than
with his fellows.
It was in his thirtieth year that Ian first
spoke with Ethlenn ; and that was the year
when she and her widowed mother came to
live at what was then the lonely clachan of
Easter Creggans near Strachur. I am using
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 241
the word meaningly : for though, as I say, it
was then he first spoke with her, he had seen
her three years earlier, though without know-
ledge of who she was. One day in late autumn
he had gone with a friend as far as Ormidalc
of Loch Ridden, and having said farewell to
his one intimate companion, who was on his
way to a far land whence he would not come
again, had walked along the steep hill-slopes
to Tigh-na-bruaich in the Kyles of Bute, where
he had the steamer that sailed the fifty or sixty
miles' water-way to Inverary. On the boat,
a small screw - steamer for cargo and local
traffic, he saw a young girl whose beauty
fascinated him. Well enough he knew who
was the grey-haired man she was with, Robert
Stuart of Fionnamar in Ardlamont ; but be-
cause of the feud between this man and his
own father, Ian Mclan of Tigh-na-coille in
Strachurmore, he could not break the silence.
Sure, as old Dionaid said to me, it is for doubt-
ing if Ian would have spoken in any case; for
he, the dreamer, had suddenly come upon his
dream, had seen the face that haunted his
visions by day and night ; and that seeing,
then and there, was enough for him. It
Q
242 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
was, indeed, characteristic of Ian Mor that
he made no inquiry concerning them, when a
boat that had been hanging about in Inch-
marnock Water, carried them away to the
Ardlamont shore ; and that from that day he
made no effort to find if the beautiful girl
were kith or kin to " Fionnamar," or was but
a passing visitor. But already he loved her.
Far away she was from him, as the white
cloud from the blue hill which holds the fugi-
tive shadow only. Dimly he recognised this.
But the hill can love the cloud, as the pine
the wandering wind, as the still tarn the leap-
ing star in the heavens. She became the sun-
gold in his life ; he saw her in every fair and
beautiful thing, in the wave, in the wind-v/hite
grass, in the light of morning and of gloam-
ing ; everywhere he heard her voice or the
faint rumour of her coming feet. He did
not dream to meet her ; it may be he would
have gone up into his lonely hills if he had
known of her approach. He loved, then, only
the beautiful phantom of his mind.
It was from that time that Ian Mor, the
second son of Ian Mclan the old minister in
Strachurmore, became the poet. Ever since
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 243
he had left the College in Glasgow he had
worked lovingly and long in prose and verse,
with many hopes and a few illusory successes :
content that his father left him to his own
devices, and that his brother Hector took upon
himself all the care of Tigh-na-coillc. But under
the new influence that had come into his life
a strange thing happened. All his youthful am-
bitions became wild swans, and he found himself
with one abiding desire : to be a singer for his
own people, his own race, in their own ancient
language — a tongue old and deep and mysteri-
ous as the mountain-wind or the sighing sea.
One day, not long after his father's death,
he was near a summer-shealing on the upper
slope of Ben Maisach when he heard a
girl singing an unfamiliar Gaelic song, as
she lay in the heather watching the kye
close upon the hour of the milking.
tVa've, nva-ve, green branches, nua've me far aivay
To luhere the forest deepens and the hill-nxiinds, sleeping, stay :
IVhere T?eace doth fold her tnuilight swings, and through the
heart of day
There goes the rumour of passing hours gro-uon faint and grey.
IVave, njoa've, green branches, my heart like a bird doth hover
eAbo-ue the nesting-place your green-gloom shadovjs cover :
O come to my nesting heart, come close, come close, bend over,
Joy of my heart, my life, my prince, my lover !
244 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
There is an incommunicable music in the
long, slow flow of the Gaelic song and in
its dreamy monotony. The haunting air
and words passed into his brain. Some-
thing awoke there : as the sea-wind, suddenly
striking a loch, will awake echoes in remote
corries on the hills.
Curious, because of a new strange lilt in
the lines, and of a repressed intensity in
the simple Gaelic words, he asked the singer
whose was the song she sang. It was then
that, for the first time, he heard of Ethlenn
Stuart.
That summer they met. From the first
they loved. No one could gainsay the
beauty of Ethlenn, with her tall, lithe, slim
figure, her dark - brown dusky hair, her
gloaming eyes, her delicate features, with,
above all, her radiant expression of joyous
life. That many heads were shaken know-
ingly or warningly because of her was
nothing against the fair lass : only, there
were few, probably there was none, who
understood her. She saw little of the
strath-folk, and when not at home with her
invalid mother at the cot among the pines
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 245
above Creggans, or upon the loch, was a
wanderer upon the hills. There, in the fresh
mornings or in the drowsy afternoons, or in
the prolonged hours of sundown, often she
met Ian. More and more dear they grew
to each other, till at last they cared to have
no other comrade than the hill-wind that
whispered through the pines its message of
joy, or the sunlight that came floodingly
from over the mountains in the east and
ebbed in vast serenities of peace along the
hill-crests beyond the narrow sea-loch. Many
of her songs, many of his, were made at
this time. This is the song of the " Daughter
of the Sun " that he wrote to her out of
his heart, and is sung to this day. In the
original there is the swift flame, the con-
suming fire, the repressed passion which I
find it impossible to convey. Whoso has
heard this song of Ian M6r, and thrilled in
the heart-loud silence that follows it, sung
in the twilight or by the peats by one who
loves or has loved, only such an one can
know it : — *
* Alona signifies "most beautiful" or "exquisitely beauti-
ful," and is at same time equivalent to " dear to me " or " dear
of my heart."
246 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
Thou art the Daughter of the Sun,
Alona !
Even as the sun in a green place,
The light that is upon thy face !
When thou art gone there is dusk, on my ways,
Alona !
Thy soul is of sun-fire wrought in clay,
Alona,
The white warm clay that hath for name,
Alona — and for word of fame,
Ethlenn — and is for me a Flame
To burn against the Eternal Day,
Alona !
The hills know thee, and the green woods,
Alona,
And the wide sea, and the blue loch, and the stream
On thy brow, Daughter of the Sun, is agleam
The mystery of Dream, —
Alona !
The fires of the sun that burn thee,
Alona,
O, heart of my heart, are in me !
Thy fire burns, thy flame killeth, thy sea
Of light blazeth continually —
Is there no rest in joy, no rest, no rest for me
Whom rapture slayeth utterly,
Alona, Alona !
It was on the eve of the day he made this
song to Ethlenn that he and she met among
the pines upon the lower slopes of Maol-Lae-
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 247
y-a-ghrian. He came upon her while she lay
full length along the bole of a fallen pine.
For a time he stood looking upon her. The
sunlight, flowing from above Ben Dearg and
Am Buachaille on the west side of the loch,
streamed upon her body as it lay dark against
the red pine-bole, and lay upon her face in a
glor>^ The voice of the wind among the trees
was as the tide coming over smooth sands.
The cuckoos were calling one to another : echo-
like falling cadences coming back from the
Wood of Claondiri on the opposite coast.
He hesitated to tell her what he had to
say : above all, to break the spell. She was
at one with nature, thus. The wind was her
comrade, the pine-tree her brother: she herself
a flower.
When he leaned forward and kissed her he
saw that her eyes were dreaming in the far
depths above her. She smiled, opened her
arms to him, but did not rise.
" Aluinn," she whispered, " Ian - a - ghray,
Aluinn, Aluinn ! "
For a long while they stayed thus in silence.
They two and the wind : all the world fell
away from these three.
248 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
At last Ian stirred.
" Come, Alona : come, Ethlenn - miiirnean,"
he whispered, with his lips against her ear,
under the dusky fragrant shadow of her hair.
Hand in hand, they passed beneath the
pines, and out upon the heather. As they
climbed Creag'-an-Eich, in the wonderful after-
glow, though it was already less than two
hours short of midnight, there were no other
sounds than the deep wave-murmur of the
flowing air amid the pine-trees now beyond
them, and the crying of the lapwings. Even
the ewes and lambs were still. At long
intervals the clucking of grouse, or the churr
of a fern-owl, rustled like eddies across the
calm of the heather-sea.
When they reached the summit of Creag'-
an-Eich — to some known as Maol-Lae-y-a-
ghrian, because of lan's songs — they stood for
a while speechless.
Beneath them the land swam circling to the
loch. Save in the shadow of the west, the
water was like the melted ore of the Tuatha-
de-Danann, suspended so in the flaming caul-
drons under the mountains over against a day
that shall come again. Beyond, hill - range
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 249
after hill-range lay in long curves of shadowy
amethyst deepening into purple. Over the
most remote, three stars seemed to drop silver
fire through the faint rose-glow which underlay
the straits of gold and crimson far-spreading
into immeasurable lagoons of quiet light.
Behind them, where they stood hand in
hand facing the light, were the mountains,
purple - grey and grey - blue : vast buttressed
heights rising sheer and isolate. Mass after
mass, peak after peak, the mountain sanctu-
aries stood in their dim, mysterious majesty.
" Ethlenn-Alona," said Ian at last, but in a
voice so low that the girl by his side just
caught the words : " Ethlenn, we have already
given all to each other, and have vowed the
troth upon us through life. But now let us
vow the troth of death also, for who is it that
will be knowing when the dark hour is leaping
through the noon or stealing through the
night."
So it was there and thus they vowed their
solemn troth that neither life nor death should
come between them. The prayer that was
in each heart rose, an invisible bird, and flew
towards the slow-receding seas of light. The
250 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
hill-wind carried their vows far and wide upon
the mountains they loved.
Nor did they know, as with clasped hands
they wandered down towards the pine-wood,
that a shadow walked behind them — one who
was like Ethlenn, tall and beautiful, but with
her eyes wild and full of a despairing pain.
Now that I have gone thus far I should
tell their story fully ; but I cannot.
Here is what is for knowledge throughout
the glens.
That night Ian told Ethlenn how he had
received a mysterious letter from the distant
southland city, London. It purported to be
from his brother Hector, whose word was
that he had departed suddenly into the south
country from Edinburgh, whither, as Ian
knew, he had lately gone. The writing was
in an unfamiliar hand. The message was
to the effect that Hector was ill, dying ; that
he begged Ian to come to him at once ; and
that, on his arrival, he would be met by a
friend, a Stralachlan man at that, who would
take him straightway to the death-bed.
Well, it was the long way to London that
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 251
Ian M6r went. Was there never a hill he
wondered, after the Cumberland fells were
left far behind — was there never a iiill in the
poor land ?
But all thoughts of this foreign England
and of the great city he was so eager to see,
and yet was already weary of, went from him,
when, at the station, he was met by Roderick
Stuart, the cousin of Ethlenn.
What did it mean ? What was the mean-
ing of this thing? Why was Roderick Stuart
in London — he who was a small laird high
up in Stralachlan of Loch Fyne : he that was
the lover of Ethlenn : he that had sworn to
the undoing of Ian Mor, and to the winning
of his cousin Ethlenn after all ?
The man came forward with what smile
upon his false lips could rise above a heart
so black.
" No," said Ian simply ; " no, we will not
be shaking hands, Roderick -mhic-Aonghas.
There is that between us of which there is
no need to speak. Where will my brother
be? If you will be so good as to tell me
the way I will go to him alone,"
Stuart laughed. " London isn't Inverary,
252 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
lan-mhic-Ian : no, nor yet Greenock : no,
nor yet even Glasgow. The place where your
brother is, why it will be miles and miles
from here. There is a cab here waiting
for us. If you wish to see Hector Mclan
alive you must not be waiting here, talking
of this and that."
In the long drive through the streets, so
unspeakably sordid and dreary that lan's
heart bled for the wretched folk who had to
live away from the quiet hills and the clean
waters, he asked his companion many ques-
tions, but without any answer that gave him
ease. Again, what was the meaning of Rod-
erick Stuart being dressed as though he
were a minister ? True, he was a man with
much money, so it was said : but why was he
clad as though he were a minister? Was
it a southland way?
So sure at last was he that he was being
deceived, that he would have then and there
parted with the man Stuart had it not been
that, at that moment, the cab swerved, passed
through a gateway into a short narrow avenue,
and came to a stop abruptly.
Almost immediately after they had entered
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 253
the house, Stuart was called by a servant
out of the room where they waited. When
he came back, a minute or two later, it was
with a tall, heavy-browed, sullen-eyed man.
" Ian," began Roderick Stuart familiarly,
and with a smile as he noticed the angry
look in Ian M6r's eyes : " Ian, this is Dr
MacManus, of whom I have told you."
Ian made no answer, but looked from one
to the other. The tall man turned to his
companion.
" Did you say he was an older or a younger
brother of yours, Mr Stuart ? "
" Younger."
But here Ian M6r spoke, frowning darkly.
" I do not know you, sir, and I do not
know why I am in this house, if my brother
Hector is not here. If he is, I am wishing
to go to him at once. As for this man
here, Roderick Stuart, he is no kith or kin
to me. My name is Ian Mclan, and I am
of Tigh-na-coille in Strachurmore of Loch
Fyne."
But why should I delay in telling that
which will already be guessed?
254 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
The man Stuart had prevailed with this
Dr MacManus, whether by craft or by bribery,
or both : and there is no need to say more
than that Ian M6r found too late that he
had been trapped into a private asylum.*
In the months that followed no word was
had of him. His brother Hector, who had
not been ill at all, and had never gone south
from Edinburgh, did all that he could, not
only by inquiries in London, because of
what Ethlenn had told him, but also of the
steamship companies, for Roderick Stuart of
Dubh Chnoc in Stralachlan told him how he
had met Ian in Glasgow, and how he, Ian,
* I am not telling here the story of Ian Mor. All who knew
him, and many of those who love his songs, are familiar with the
piteous record of the bitter wrong that was done to him and to
Ethlenn Stuart. By a strange coincidence, the day of his abrupt
release was the day before Ethlenn's death, the day he left
London for his return to the mountain-land for which, as for
her, his heart was sick unto death. The death of Roderick
Stuart had brought about his freedom ; but here it is needless to
go into details of all that happened before and after.
It was Ian M6r himself who found her body, on the eve that
followed the sunrise into which her life had lapsed, as a flower
might give up its perfume. Nevertheless, I should add, the
passion of his love while she lived, the passion of his love for
her in death, had more to do with the strange dream- madness,
or " ecstasy," of his after-years, than even the excruciating
mental suffering which he endured through the villainy of
Roderick Stuart.
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 255
had informed him of his intent to sail to
America and take to a new life there under
a new name. Hector believed so far, and,
indeed, this story grew, and was received.
Only Ethlenn knew that the man lied. She
waited with her heart in leash.
In the sixth month of silence Ethlenn's
child was born. With joy and pain she
spent long hours looking into its blue eyes,
seeking there the clue to the strange and
terrible mystery.
Ah, it is God only knows what she learned
there ; but one day she put the child hurriedly
back to her breast, and strode swift through
the pines to her home. Neither sorrow nor
suffering had dimmed her beauty. She moved
now as a Bandia, a mountain-goddess.
The child she left with a kinswoman, Mary
MacNair, a young widow, who took the little
one to her heart with sobbing joy because
of her own womb that had not borne and
of the dead man whom she had loved.
Having done this, Ethlenn put off from
Creggan shore in a boat. The breeze came
down the loch, and she sailed swift southward.
When opposite the Glen of Dubh Chnoc she
255 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
landed. In less than an hour she was upon
the high upland where Roderick Stuart had
his home. The man was not there. He
was up on the hill, she was told — at the
shealing of Farlan Macfarlane the shepherd.
When, at last, they met, it was by the
Lochan-na-Mona, the deep black tarn in the
moorland.
They looked at each other in silence. Then
a cruel smile came upon the man's face.
" It is too late that you are coming now,
Ethlenn Stuart — or is it Ethlenn Mclan I
should be saying?"
She took no notice of the sneer.
" I am Ethlenn Mclan. Do you know
why I have come?"
" Well, as for that, my lass ..."
" I have come to kill you."
" You . . . you ! Ah, by the black stone
in lona, is that so? Sure, it is terrified I
ought to be!"
But suddenly all the surface courage of the
man sank. He saw somewhat in Ethlenn's
eyes which put the fear upon him.
She drew closer. The eyes in her death-
pale face were like dark water-lilies afloat
on wan water.
D A U G 1 1 T E R O 1'^ T 1 1 K S U N 257
" I did not know in what way G(jd would
give you over into my hands, but now I
know, Roderick-mhic-Aonghas."
" I am innocent, Ethlenn Co-ogha . . .
I did not do it . . . besides, he . . . he . . .
he is not dead . . . and ..."
But with a spring she was upon him. He
stumbled, fell, half-rose : with a swift whirl
she swung him off his balance. The next
moment he fell headlong, backward, into the
deep pool.
Ethlenn stood for a moment watching.
Then she snatched the iron-shod staff he
had dropped. If he rose, it must be to his
death. But whether caught in the trailing
weeds, or for some other reason not to be
known, Roderick Stuart never rose. There,
in time, his body was found : and the strath-
folk said that he had fallen there, heavy with
the drink that was always upon him of late,
and had been drowned there in the dark
and the silence.
Ethlenn waited by the tarn till, from its
unrevealing depths, bubble after bubble
ascended ; waited till not the smallest air-
bubble quivered upon the smooth blackness
R
258 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
of the water ; waited till the lapwings of the
gloaming flew overhead, crying mournfully.
Then, at last, she turned, and went down
through the shadowy woods to the place
where her boat was.
It was moonlight when, three hours later,
she opened the door of the cottage. Her
mother was awake, and called to her.
" Have you had good news, Ethlenn, my
bonnie ? " she whispered, as she drew the
beautiful face down to her own.
The girl stared at her questioningly.
" I am asking it, dear, because of the glad
light that is in your eyes. Perhaps it is
only a good deed that you have done?"
"Ay, mother dear, that is it. It is because
of a good deed that I have done. But do
not speak to me about it, now or later. I
am glad, who can never be glad again till
I see Ian face to face."
And from that day forth Ethlenn went to
and fro as one in a dream. Some thought
that her sorrow had crazed her : others that
a life-long melancholy had come to her out
of her grief. Once only she was heard to
laugh : when a farmer from Stralachlan urged
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 259
her to write a monody on Roderick Stuart,
whose untimely death had shocked the people
of the strath.
More than ever she haunted the pine-wood,
the hills, or the loch. Often she was seen,
singing low to her baby, or raising it on high
to catch the wind or the sun, calling the boy
her Ian, her poet, her blossom of joy.
In the late heats she crossed often to the
steep woodlands at the Ceann-More, on the
opposite side of the loch. At one rocky head-
land, crowned with a solitary pine, she dreamed
through long hours. It was here that she
and Ian had spent one memorable golden day.
Lying here, she could still feel his breath
warm against her face, could almost feel his
lips upon her own. Nearly all her last songs
were made at this spot, Creagaleen.
So it was that, after many weeks, the steep,
rocky, and densely-wooded shore which ran
between two promontories became known to
the fisher-folk of Kenmore and Strachur as
Ard-Ethlenn.
Only once did she take the child with her
when she went to Creagaleen. It was on
that day she made this song to Ian ban, her
26o DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
little boy, her Ian who was of Ian. It is
called in the Gaelic, The Two lans.
Are these your eyes, Ian,
That look into mine ?
Is this smile, this laugh
Thine ?
Heart of me, dear,
O pulse of my heart,
This is our child, our child —
And . . . we apart !
Wrought of thy life, Ian,
Wrought in my womb.
Never to feel thy kiss ! —
Ah, bitter doom !
Live, live, thou laugliing boy.
We meet again !
Here do we part, we twain :
I to my death-sweet pain,
Thou to thy span of joy.
Hush, hush : within thine eyes
His eyes I see.
Sure, death is Paradise
If so my soul can be,
Ian, with thee !
Here, too, were made some of those songs
of passionate love which have never been
collected, but linger only in the hearts of those
who learned them long years ago. Two oi
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 261
these I have in llic writing of Ian Mor, who
copied them for mc from the original in " The
Book of My Heart," as the small MS.
volume was called which was found among
Ethlenn's papers.
I
His face was glad as dawn to me,
His breath was sweet as dusk to me,
His eyes were burning flames to me,
Shule, S/iule, S/tule, ngra^i !
The broad noon-day was night to me,
The full-moon niglit was dark to me,
The stars whirled and the poles span
The hour God took him far from me.
Perhaps he dreams in heaven now,
Perhaps he doth in worship bow,
A white flame round his foam-white brow,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah !
I laugii to think of him like this,
Who once found all his joy and bliss
Against my heart, against my kiss,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah !
Star of my joy, art still the same
Now thou hast gotten a new name,
Pulse of my heart, my Blood, my Flame,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah !
262 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
II
He laid his dear face next to mine,
His eyes aflame burned close to mine,
His heart to mine, his lips to mine,
O he was mine, all mine, all mine.
Drunk with old wine of love I was.
Drunk as the wild-bee in the grass
Singing his honey-mad sweet bass.
Drunk, drunk with wine of love I was !
His lips of life to me were fief.
Before him I was but a leaf
Blown by the wind, a shaken leaf.
Yea, as the sickle reaps the sheaf,
My Grief !
He reaped me as a gathered sheaf!
His to be gathered, his the bliss.
But not a greater bliss than this !
All of the empty world to miss
For wild redemption of his kiss !
My Grief !
For hell was lost, though heaven was brief
Sphered in the universe of thy kiss —
So cries to thee thy fallen leaf.
Thy gathered sheaf,
Lord of my life, my Pride, my Chief,
My Grief!
It was midway in the heat-wave of a rain-
less September that, in lan's words, the
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 263
Daughter of the Sun " went away with the
hill-wind through the green silences."
One evening she sailed across the loch, and
drifted slow with the tide through the green
depths beneath Ard-Ethlenn. At Creagaleen
she moored the boat, and climbed the bracken-
covered boulders. Under the pine where she
and Ian had first known the passion of their
love, she lay down : strangely weary now.
The moon rose over the Cowal, transmuting
the velvety shadows on the hills into a fluid
light. The lingering gloaming, the moonshine,
pale stars to north and south, deep calms of
shadow, one and all wrought the loch to the
beauty of dream. Thus might the bride of
Man^nnan, she who was a lovely sea - loch,
have seemed to him, when he came in from
the ocean upon his chariot, the flowing tide.
To have loved supremely ! After all, the
green, sweet world had been good to her, its
daughter. She had loved and been loved,
with the passion of passion. Nothing in the
world could take away that joy ; not the
death of Ian Mor — of which now there could
be no longer any doubt — not sorrow by day
and grief by night ; not the mysterious powers
264 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
themselves that men called God, and that
moved and lived and had their blind will
behind the blowing wind and the rising sap,
behind the drifting leaf and the granite hills,
behind the womb of woman and the mind of
man, behind the miracle of day and night,
behind life, behind death.
It was hers : all hers. To have known
this wonderful happiness was in truth to be,
as Ian had often called her, a Princess of the
World. How gladly she would have lived
through the long years with him, she thought :
but, since that was not to be, how gladly she
forfeited all else.
All that night she lay there, under the pine-
tree, listening to the lapping of the tide in
the hollows and crevices beneath.
It was for peace, too, to know that she had
killed Roderick Stuart. Perhaps Ian knew
that his murderer lay in that black hill-tarn.
That were well. She would have killed him,
of course, whatever had happened ; but it was
better that he was delivered over to her then,
there, in that way. It was a good law : a
life for a life. The minister said " No," and
the people echoed " No " ; but in the human
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN 265
heart it was al\va)'.s " Yes." Ian was the
tenderest human being — man, woman, or
child — she had ever known : but, sure, he
too would have slain Rodcrick-mhic-Aonghas :
ay, sure, that was for the knowing. He would
love her the better when they met again in
the shadow of the grave, because of the deed
she had done. Of old, no man or woman of
heroic soul suffered the death - wrong to pass
without the death - eric. And who are the
blind sheep of to-day that follow new shep-
herds? Do they know any whit more than
did the mountain -folk and the sea-farers in
the days of old ?
Towards dawn the tide was on the ebb.
Ethlenn knew that it was ebb - tide also in
her life.
At sunrise she rose, stretched out her arms,
and called Ian thrice. She heard the gulls
and skuas crying upon the weedy promontories ;
on the loch the mackerel-shoals made a rustling
noise ; the hill-wind sang a far-off song : but no
answer came from him whom she called.
The sunlight was about her like a garment :
as a consuming flame, rather, it was within
her and around her.
266 DAUGHTER OF THE SUN
Her eyes filled with light : her body thrilled.
Slowly she turned. A smile came upon her
face. She stooped, kneeled, and lay down in
the green-gold gloom beneath the pine.
" Ian ! " she whispered ; " Ian, Aluinn, my
Poet, my Mountain-Lover, Ian, Ian ! "
For it was Death that lay there, waiting
comradely : but he had come in the guise of
Ian M6r.
THE BIRDEEN
Some other time I will tell the story of
Isla and Morag Mclan : Isla that was the
foster-brother and chief friend of Ian Mclan
the mountain - poet, known as Ian of the
Hills, or simply as Ian Mor, because of his
great height and the tireless strength that
was his. Of Morag, too, there is a story
of the straths, sweet as honey of the heather,
and glad as the breeze that, blowing across
it in summer, waves the purple into white-
o'-the-wind and sea-change amethyst.
Isla was seven years older than Ian Mor,
and had been seven years married to Morag
when the sorrow of their friend's life came
upon him. Of that matter I speak else-
where.
They were happy, Isla and Morag. Though
both were of Strachurmore of Loch Fyne,
they lived at a small hill-farm on the west
side of the upper fjord of Loch Long, and
267
268 THEBIRDEEN
within sight of Arrochar, where it sits among
its mountains. They could not see the
fantastic outline of The Cobbler, because of
a near hill that shut them off, though from
the Loch it was visible and almost upon
them. But they could watch the mists on
Ben Arthur and Ben Maisach, and when a
flying drift of mackerel-sky spread upward
from Ben Lomond, that was but a few
miles eastward as the crow flies, they could
tell of the good weather that was sure.
Before the end of the first year of their
marriage, deep happiness came to them. "The
Birdeen" was their noon of joy. When the
child came, Morag had one regret only,
that a boy was not hers, for she longed to
see Isla in the child that was his. But Isla
was glad, for now he had two dreams in
his life : Morag, whom he loved more and
more, and the little one whom she had
borne to him, and was for him a mystery
and joy against the dark hours of the dark
days that must be.
They named her Eilidh. One night, in
front of the peats, and before her time was
come, Morag, sitting with Isla and Ian
THEBIRDEEN 269
Mor, dreamed of the birthing. It was dark,
save for the warm redness of the peat-
glow. There was no other h'ght, and in the
dusky corners the obscure velvety things
that we call shadows moved and had their
own life and were glad. Outside, the hill-
wind was still at last, after a long wandering
moaning that had not ceased since its
westering, for, like a wailing hound, it had
followed the sun all day. A soft rain fell.
The sound of it was for peace.
Isla sat forward, his chin in his hands
and his elbows on his knees. He was
dreaming, too. " Morag," " Isla," deep love,
deep mystery, the child that was already
here, and would soon be against the breast ;
these were the circuit of his thoughts. Sure,
Morag, sweet and dear as she was, was now
more dear, more sweet. " Green life to her,"
he murmured below his breath, "and in her
heart joy by day and peace by night."
Ian sat in the shadow of the ingle, and
looked now at one and now at the other,
and then mayhap into the peat - flame or
among the shadows. He saw what he saw.
Who knows what is in a poet's mind ? The
270 THEBIRDEEN ^
echo of the wind that was gone was there, '
and the sound of the rain and the move-
ment and colour of the fire, and something
out of the earth and sea and sky, and great
pitifulness and tenderness for women and
children, and love of men and of birds and ^
beasts, and of the green lives that were to
him not less wonderful and intimate. And
Ian, thinking, knew that the thoughts of
Isla and Morag were drifting through his !
mind too : so that he smiled with his eyes
because of the longing and joy in the life
of the man, his friend ; and looked through
a mist of unshed tears at Morag, because of
the other longing that shone in her eyes,
and of the thinness of the hands now, and
of the coming and going of the breath like a
bird tired after a long flight. He was troubled,
too, with the fear and the wonder that came to
him out of the hidden glooms of her soul.
It was Ian who broke the stillness, though
for sure his low words were part of the peat-
rustle and the dripping rain and the wash of '.
the sea-loch, where it twisted like a black
adder among the hills, and was now quick
with the tide.
THE biri)i<:en 271
" But if the birdcen be after you, Morag,
and not after Isla, what will you be for
calling it?"
Morag started, glanced at him with her
flame-lit eyes, and flushed. Then, with a low
laugh, her whispered answer came.
"Now it is a true thing, Ian, that you arc
a wizard. Isla has often said that you can
hear the wooing of the trees and the flowers,
but sure I 'm thinking you could hear the
very stones speak, or at least know what is
in their hearts. How did you guess that was
the thought I was having?"
"It was for the knowing, lassikin."
" Ian, it is a wife you should have, and a
child upon your knee to put its lips against
yours, and to make your heart melt because
of its little wandering hands."
Ian made no sign, though his pulse leaped,
for this was ever the longing, that lay waiting
behind heart and brain, and thrilled each
along the wise, knowing nerves — our wise
nerves that were attuned long, long ago, and
play to us a march against the light, or down
into the dark, and we unwitting, and not
knowing the ancient rune of the heritage that
272 THEBIRDEEN
the blood sings, an ancient, ancient song.
Who plays the tune to which our dancing
feet are led? It is behind the mist, that
antique strain to which the hills rose in flame
and marl, and froze slowly into granite silence,
and to which the soul of man crept from the
things of the slime to the palaces of the brain.
It is for the hearing, that : in the shells of
the human. Who knows the under-song of
the tides in the obscure avenues of the sea?
Who knows the old immemorial tidal-murmur
along the nerves — along the nerves even of a
new-born child ?
Seeing that he was silent, Morag added :
" Ay, Ian dear, it is a wife and a child you
must have. Sure no man that has all the
loving little names you give to us can do
without us ! "
" Well, well, Morag-aghray, the hour waits,
as they say out in the Isles. But you have
not given me the answer to what I asked ? "
"And it is no answer that I have. Isla! . . .
Isla, if a girl it is to be, you would be
for liking the little one to be called Morag,
because of me : but that I would not like :
no, no, I would not. Is it forgetting you
THEBIRDEEN 273
are what old Muim' Mary said, that a third
Morag in line, like a third Sheumais, would be
born in the shadow, would have the gloom ? "
" For sure, muirncan ; it is not you or I
that would forget that thing. Well, since
there 's Morag that was your mother, and
Morag that is you, there can be no third.
But it is the same with Muireall that was the
name of my mother and of the mother before
her. See here now, dear, let Ian have the
naming, if a girl it be — for all three of us
know that, if a boy it is, his name will be
Ian. So now, mo-charaid, what is the name
that will be upon the wean ? "
" Wean" repeated Ian, puzzled for a moment
because of the unfamiliar word in the Gaelic,
" ah sure, yes : well, but it is Morag who
knows best."
" No, no, Ian. The naming is to be with
you. What names of women do you love
best ? "
" Morag."
" Ah, you know well that is not a true
thing, but only a saying for the saying. Tell
me true : what name do you love best ? "
" Mona, I like, and Lora, and Silis too :
S
274 THEBIRDEEN
and of the old old names, it 's Brighid I
am loving, and, too, Dearduil {Darthuld) and
Malmhin {ATalveen) : but of all names dear
to me, and sweet in my ears, it is Eilidh
{Eil-ihy
And so it was. When, in the third week
after that night, the child was born, and a
woman -child at that, it was called Eilidh.
But the first thing that Ian said when he
entered the house after the birthing was : —
" How is the birdeen ? "
And from that day Eilidh was "the birdeen,"
oftenest : even with Isla and Morag.
Of the many songs that Ian made to Eilidh,
here is one.
Silidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, dear to me, dear and snjoeet.
In dreams I am hearing the noise of your little running feet —
The noise of your running feet that like the sea-hoofs beat
eA music by day and night, Eilidh, on the sands of my heart, my
S--weet !
Eilidh, blue V the eyes, as all babe-children are,
Jlnd luhite as the canna that blvws luith the hill-breast ivind
afar.
Whose is the light in thine eyes, the light of a star, a star
That sitteth supreme --where the starry lights of heanjen a glory
are l
THE RIRDEEN 275
Eilidfi, Biitii/i, Bilidh,put off your ivee haiiM from the heart o' me,
It is pain they are making there, n.uhere no more pain should he :
For little running feet, an wee ivhite hands, an' croodlin as of
the sea,
"Bring tears to my eyes, Silidh, tears, tears, out of the heart o" me —
£Mo lennav-a-chree,
£Mo lennav-a-chree !
This was for himself, and because of what
was in his heart. But he made songs to
the Birdeen herself Some were as simple-
mysterious as a wayside flower : others were
strange, and with a note in them that all
who know the songs of Ian will recognise.
Here is one.
I.ennavan-mo,
Lenna-uan-mo,
IV ho is it sivinging you to and fro,
With a long Ioim sowing and a snueet lo-iv croon,
eAnd the lo-ving ivords of the mother s rune ?
Lennauan-mo,
Lenna'van-mo,
IV ho is it sivinging yott to and fro ?
I am thinking it is an angel fair.
The Jlngel that looks on the gulf from the lo-ivest stair
Jlnd sowings the green ivorld up-mard by its leagues of sunshine-
hair.
Lenna--van-mo,
Lennauan-mo,
Who is it sowings you and the Jtngel to and fro ?
276 THEBIRDEEN
// is He nju/iose faintest thought is a ivorU afar.
It is He n.vhose •■wish is a leaping se^ven-moond star,
It is He, Lennavan-mo,
To nv horn you and I and all things flo^w.
Lenna-van-mo,
Lennwvan-mo,
It is only a little nvee lass you are, Bilidh-mo-chree,
'But as this nxiee blossom has roots in the depths of the sky.
So you are at one 'with the Lord of Eternity —
'Bonnie avee lass that you are,
{My morning-star,
Bilidh-mo-chree, Lennanjan-mo,
Lennavan-mo !
Once more let me give a song of his, this
time also, like " Leanabhan - Mo," of those
written while Eilidh was still a breast-babe.
Bilidh, Bilidh,
(My bonnie 'wee lass :
The 'winds blonv
Jlnd the hours pass.
But nenjer a 'wind
Can do thee 'wrong,
Bro-wn Birdeen, singing
Thy bird-heart song.
Jlnd 7ie'ver an hour
But has for thee
Blue of the hea'ven
Jlnd green of the sea :
Blue for the hope of thee,
Bilidh, Bilidh ■
THEBIRDEEN 277
Qreen for the joy of t/iee^
EilU/t, EilU/i.
S-iuing in thy nest^ then^
Hae on my heart ,
"BirJeen, "BirJeen,
Here on my heart,
Here on my heart !
But Eilidh was "the Birdecn" not only
when she could be tossed high in the air
in lan's strong arms, or could toddle to him
from claar to stool and from stool to chair ;
not only when she could go long walks with
him upon the hills above Loch Long ; but
when, as a grown lass of twenty, she was so
fair to see that the country-side smiled when
it saw her, as at the first sun-flood swallow,
or as at the first calling across dewy meadows
of the cuckoo after long days of gloom.
She was tall and slim, with a flower-like
way with her : the way of the flower in the
sunlight, of the wave on the sea, of the tree-
top in the wind. Her changing hazel eyes,
now grey-green, now dusked with sea-gloom
or a violet shadowiness ; her wonderful arched
eyebrows, dark so that they seemed black ;
the beautiful bonnie face of her, with her
278 THEBIRDEEN
mobile mouth and white flawless teeth ; the
ears that lay against the tangle of her sun-
brown shadowy hair, like pink shells on a
drift of seaweed ; the exquisite poise of head
and neck and body — are not all these things
to be read of her in the poems of Ian M6r?
Her voice, too, was sweet against the ears
as the singing of hillside burns. But most
she was loved for this : that she was ever
fresh as the dawn, young as the morning,
and alive in every fibre with the joy of life.
The old dreamed they were young again
when she was with them : the weary opened
their hearts because she was sunshine : the
young were glad and believed that all things
might be. Who can tell the many names of
the Birdeen? She was called Sunshine, Sun-
beam, Way o' the Wind, and a score more
of lovely and endearing names. But to every-
one there was one name that was common
— the Birdeen.
"What has she done to be so famous,
both through Ian Mor and others," was often
said of her when, in later years, the first few
threads of grey streaked the bonnie hair that
was her pride? What has she done, this
THEBIRDEEN 279
Eilidh, save what other women do? Ah,
well, it is not Eilidh's story I am telling : and
she living yet, and like to live till the young
heart of her is still at last. It will be the
going of a sunbeam that.
But this is for the knowing, and, sure, can
be said. She loved the green world with a
deep enduring love. Earth, sea, and sky
were comradely with her, as with few men
and fewer w^omen. And she loved men and
women and children just as Ian Mor loved
them, and that was a way not far from the
loving way that the Son of Man had, for it
was tender and true and heeding little the
evil, but rejoicing with laughter and tears
over the good. Then, too, there is this :
she loved the man to whom she gave herself,
with deep passion, that was warm against all
chill of change and time and death itself.
How few of whom even this much can be
said ? For deep passion is rare, so rare
that men have debased the flawless image to
the service of a base coinage. She gave him
love, and passion, and the longing of her
woman's heart : and she was the flame that
was in his brain, for he, too, like Ian Mor,
28o THEBIRDEEN
was a poet and dreamer. Then, after having
given joy and strength and the flower of her
life, so that he had the brain and the heart
of two lives, she gave him the supreme gift
she had for the giving, and that was their
child, that is called Aluinn because of his
beauty, and is now the poet of a new day.
When she was married to the man whose
love for her was almost worship, Ian Mor
said this to him : " Be proud, for she who
has filled you with deep meanings and new
powers, is herself a proud Queen in whose
service you must either live or die with joy."
And to Eilidh herself he said, in a written
word he gave her to take away with her :
" Rhythms of the music of love for your brain,
white-wing'd thoughts for the avenues of your
heart, and the song of the White Merle be
there ! " And the Birdeen was glad at that,
for she knew Ian, and all that he meant, and
she would rather have had that word than
any treasure of men.
To me, long years afterward, he said this :
" I have known two women that were of the
old race of the Tuatha - de - Danann. They
were as one, though she with whom my life
THE BIRD EEN 281
rose and my life went was Ethlcnn, and the
other was Eilidh, the Birdeen at whose birth-
ing I was, and who is comrade and friend to
me, more than any man has been or any
woman. Of each, this is my word : — ' A
woman beautiful, to be loved, honoured, re-
vered, ay, scarce this side idolatry : but no
weakling ; made of heroic stuff, of elemental
passions ; strong to endure, but strong also to
conquer and maintain.' "
Of what one who must be nameless wrote
to her I have no right to speak, but here is
one verse from his " Song of my Heart," ill-
clad by mc in this cold English out of the
tender Gaelic that has won him the name
"Mouth o' Honey." It is in prose I must
give it, for I can find or make no rhythm to
catch that strange sea-cadence of his : —
" Come to my life that is already yours, and at one i.uit/i you :
Come to my blood that leaps because of you.
Come to my heart that holds you, Zilidh^-
Come to my heart that holds you as the green earth clasps and
holds the sunlight,
Come to me ! Come to me, Eilidh ! "
But Still ... but still . . . "What has
she done, this Eilidh, save what other women
do?"
282 THEBIRDEEN
Sure, you must ask this elsewhere than of
me. I know no reason for it other than what
I have said. She was, and is, "the Birdeen."
" Green life to her, green song to her, green
joy to her," the old wish of Ian at her
naming, has been fulfilled indeed. Why, for
that matter, should she be called "the Bird-
een " ? There are other women as fair to
see, as sweet and true, as dear to men and
women. Why? Sure, for that, why was
Helen, Helen ; or Cleopatra, Cleopatra ; or
Deirdre, Deirdre? And, too, why does the
common familiar bow that is set in the
heavens thrill us in each new apparition as
though it were a sudden stairway to all lost
or dreamed -of Edens? As I write, I look
seaward, and over Innisdun, the dark pre-
cipitous isle that lies in these wide waters
even as Leviathan itself, a rainbow rises with
vast unbroken sweep, a skiey flower fed from
the innumerous hues of sunset woven this way
and that on the looms of the sea. And I
know that I have never seen a rainbow
before, and of all that I may see I may
never see another again as I have seen this.
Yet it is a rainbow as others are, and have
Till': HIRDICEN 283
been and will be, for all time past and to
come.
Eilidh, that was " the Birdeen " when she
laughed at the breast, and was " the Birdeen "
when her own Aluinn first turned his father's-
eyes upon her, and is " the Birdeen " now
when the white flower of age is belied by
the young eyes and the young, young heart
—Eilidh that I love, Eilidh that has the lilt
of life in her brain as no woman I have
known or heard of has ever had in like
measure, Eilidh is my Rainbow.
SILK O' THE KINE*
"What I shall now be telling you," said
Ian Mor to me once — and indeed, I should
remember the time of it well : for it was in
the last year of his life, when rarely any
other than myself saw aught of Ian of the
Hills — " What I shall now be telling you
is an ancient forgotten tale of a man and
woman of the old heroic days. The name
of the man was Isla, and the name of the
woman was Eilidh."
" Ah, yes, for sure," Ian added, as I inter-
rupted him ; " I knew you would be saying
that : but it is not of Eilidh that loved
Cormac that I am now speaking. Nor am
* Silk o' the Kiiie, one of the poetic "secret" names of con-
quered Erin, was in ancient days, there and in the Scottish
Isles, a designation for a woman of rare beauty. The name
Eilidh (pronounced Eil-ih, with a long accent on the first
syllable) is also ancient, but lingers in the Isles still, and indeed
throughout the Western Highlands, as also, I understand, in
Connaught and Connemara. Somhairle (Somerlcd) is pro-
nounced So-irl-ft.
284
SILK O' THE KINE 285
I taking the hidden way with Isla, that was
my friend, nor with Eih'dh that is my
name-child, whom you know. Let the Bird-
een be, bless her bonnie heart ! No, what
I am for telling you is all as new to you
as the green grass to a lambkin : and no
one has heard it from these tired lips o' mine
since I was a boy, and learned it off the
mouth of old Barabal MacAodh that was
my foster-mother."
Of all the many tales of the olden time
that Ian M6r told me, and are to be found in
no book, this was the last. That is why I
give it here, where I have spoken much of
him.
Ian told me this thing one winter night,
while we sat before the peats, where the
ingle was full of warm shadows. We were
in the croft of the small hill-farm of Gleni-
vore, which was held by my cousin, Silis
Macfarlane. But we were alone then, for
Silis was over at the far end of the Strath,
because of the baffling against death of her
dearest friend, Giorsal MacDiarmid.
It was warm there, before the peats, with
286 SILK O' THE KINE
a thick wedge of spruce driven into the
heart of them. The resin crackled and sent
blue sparks of flame up through the red
and yellow tongues that licked the sooty
chimney - slopes, in which, as in a shell, we
could hear an endless soughing of the wind.
Outside, the snow lay deep. It was so
hard on the surface that the white hares,
leaping across it, went soundless as shadows,
and as trackless.
In the far-off days, when Somhairle was
Maormor of the Isles, the most beautiful
woman of her time was named Eilidh.
The king had sworn that whosoever was
his best man in battle, when next the
Fomorian pirates out of the north came
down upon the isles, should have Eilidh to
wife.
Eilidh, who, because of her soft, white
beauty, for all the burning brown of her by
the sun and wind, was also called Silk o'
the Kine, laughed low when she heard this.
For she loved the one man in all the world
SILK O' THE KINE 287
for her, and that was Isla, the son of Isla
M6r the blind chief of Islay. He, too,
loved her even as she loved him. He was
a poet as well as a warrior, and scarce she
knew whether she loved best the fire in his
eyes when, girt with his gleaming weapons
and with his fair hair unbound, he went
forth to battle : or the shine in his eyes
when, harp in hand, he chanted of the great
deeds of old, or made a sweet song to her,
Eilidh, his queen of women : or the flame
in his eyes when, meeting her at the setting of
the sun, he stood speechless, wrought to silence
because of his worshipping love of her.
One day she bade him go to the Isle of
the Swans to fetch her enough of the breast-
down of the wild cygnets for her to make a
white cloak of. While he was still absent —
and the going there, and the faring thereupon,
and the returning, took three days — the
Fomorians came down upon the Long Island.
It was a hard fight that was fought, but
at last the Norlanders were driven back with
slaughter. Somhairle, the Maormor, was all
but slain in that fight, and the corbies would
have had his eyes had it not been for Osra
288 SILK O' THE KINE
mac Osra, who, with his javelin, slew the
spearman who had waylaid the king while he
slipped in the Fomorian blood he had spilt.
While the ale was being drunk out of the
great horns that night, Somhairle called for
Eilidh.
The girl came to the rath where the king
and his warriors feasted ; white and beautiful
as moonlight among turbulent black waves.
A murmur went up from many bearded
lips. The king scowled. Then there was
silence.
" I am here, O King," said Eilidh. The
sweet voice of her was like soft rain in the
woods at the time of the greening.
Somhairle looked at her. Sure, she was
fair to see. No wonder men called her Silk
o' the Kine. His pulse beat against the
stormy tide in his veins. Then, suddenly,
his gaze fell upon Osra. The heart of his
kinsman that had saved him was his own :
and he smiled, and lusted after Eilidh no
more.
"Eilidh, that art called Silk o' the Kine,
dost thou see this man here before me ? "
" I see the man."
SILK O ' THE K I N E 289
" Let the name of him then be upon your
h'ps."
" It is Osra mac Osra."
"It is this Osra and no other man that is
to wind thee, fair Silk o' the Kine. And by
the same token, I have sworn to him that he
shall lie breast to breast with thee this night.
So go hence to where Osra has his sleeping-
place, and await him there upon the deer-skins.
From this hour thou art his wife. It is said."
Then a silence fell again upon all there,
when, after a loud surf of babbling laughter
and talk, they saw that Eilidh stood where
she was, heedless of the king's word.
Somhairle gloomed. The great black eyes
under his cloudy mass of hair flamed upon
her.
" Is it dumb you are, Eilidh," he said at
last, in a cold, hard voice ; " or do you wait
for Osra to take you hence ? "
" I am listening," she answered ; and that
whisper was heard by all there. It was as
the wind in the heather, low and sweet.
Then all listened.
The playing of a harp was heard. None
played like that, save Isla mac Isla Mor.
T
290 SILK O' THE KINE
Then the deer-skins were drawn aside, and
Isla came among those who feasted there.
"Welcome, O thou who wast afar off when
the foe came," began Somhairle, with bitter
mocking.
But Isla took no note of that. He went
forward till he was nigh upon the Maormor.
Then he waited.
" Well, Isla that is called Isla-Aluinn, Isla
fair-to-see, what is the thing you want of me,
that you stand there, close-kin to death I am
warning you ? "
" I want Eilidh that is called Silk o' the
Kine."
" Eilidh is the wife of another man."
" There is no other man, O King."
" A brave word that ! And who says it,
O Isla, my over-lord ? "
" I say it."
Somhairle, the great Maormor, laughed, and
his laugh was like a black bird of omen let
loose against a night of storm.
" And what of Eilidh ? "
" Let her speak."
With that the Maormor turned to the girl,
who did not quail.
SILK O' THE KINE 291
" Speak, Silk o' the Kine ! "
" There is no other man, O King."
'' Fool, I have this moment wedded you
and Osra mac Osra."
" I am wife to Isla-Aluinn."
" Thou canst not be wife to two men."
" That may be, O King. I know not. But
I am wife to Isla-Aluinn."
The king scowled darkly. None at the board
whispered even. Osra shifted uneasily, clasping
his sword-hilt. Isla stood, his eyes ashine as
they rested on Eilidh. He knew nothing in
life or death could come between them.
" Art thou not still a maid, Eilidh ? " Som-
hairle asked at last.
" No."
" Shame to thee, wanton."
The girl smiled ; but in her eyes, darkened
now, there shone a flame.
" Is Isla-Aluinn the man ? "
" He is the man."
With that the king laughed a bitter laugh.
" Seize him ! " he cried.
But Isla made no movement. So those
who were about to bind him stood by, ready
with naked swords.
292 SILK O' THE KINE
" Take up your harp," said Somhairle.
Isla stooped, and lifted the harp.
" Play now the wedding song of Osra mac
Osra and Eilidh Silk o' the Kine."
Isla smiled ; but it was a grim smile that, and
only Eilidh understood. Then he struck the
harp, and he sang thus far this song out of his
heart to the woman he loved better than life.
Eilidk, Eilid/i, heart of my life, my pulse, my flame.
There are ti.vo men lo-ving thee and t'lvo ^who are calling thee
luife :
"But only one husband to thee, Eilidh, that art my nxjife, and
my joy;
Jly, sure, thy <voomb kno-ivs me, and the child thou bearest is
mine.
Thou to me, I to thee, there is nought else in the ivorld, Eilidh
Silk 6" the KJne j
V^ught else in the ivorld, no, no other man for thee, no
ivomanfor me I
But with that Somhairle rose, and dashed
the hilt of his great spear upon the ground.
" Let the twain go," he shouted.
Then all stood or leaned back as Isla and
Eilidh slowly moved through their midst,
hand in hand. Not one there but knew
they went to their death.
" This night shall be theirs," cried the
SILK O ' THE K I X K 293
king with mocking wrath ; " then, Osra, you
can have your will of Silk o' the Kine, that
is your wife ; and have Isla-Aluinn to be
your slave ; and this for the rising and setting
of three moons from to-night. Then they
shall each be blinded and made dumb, and
that for the same space of time ; and at the
end of that time they shall be thrown upon
the snow to the wolves."
Nevertheless, Osra groaned in his heart
because of that night of Isla with Eilidh. Not
all the years of the years could give him a
joy like unto that.
In the silence in the mid-dark he went
stealthily to where the twain lay.
It was there he was found in the morning,
where he had died soundlessly, with Eilidh's
dagger up to the hilt in his heart.
But none saw them go save one, and that
was Sorch, the brother of Isla — Sorch who,
in later days, was called Sorch Mouth o*
Honey because of his sweet songs. Of all
songs that he sang none was so sweet against
the ears as that of the love of Eilidh and
Isla. Two lovers these that loved as few love :
and deathless, too, because of that great love.
294 SILK O' THE KINE
And what Sorch saw was this. Just before
the rising of the sun, Isla and Eilidh came
hand in hand from out of the rath, where
they had lain awake all night because of their
deep joy.
Silently, but unhasting, fearless still as of
yore, they moved across the low dunes that
withheld the sea from the land.
The waves were just frothed, so low were
they. The loud glad singing of them filled
the morning. Eilidh and Isla stopped when
the first waves met their feet. They cast
their raiment from them. Eilidh flung the
gold fillet of her dusky hair far into the sea.
Isla broke his sword, and saw the two halves
shelve through the moving greenness. Then
they turned and kissed each other upon the
lips.
And the end of the song of Sorch is this :
that neither he nor any man knows whether
they went to life or to death ; but that Isla
and Eilidh swam out together against the
sun, and were seen never again by any of
their kin or race. Two strong swimmers were
these who swam out together into the sun-
light— Eilidh and Isla.
BY FIONA MACLEOD
{Author of " Pharais")
THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS
Mr George Cottereli,, in an article in The Academy : —
" It is impossible to read her and not to feel that some magic in
her touch has made the sun seem brighter, the grass greener, the
world more wonderful."
Mr Grant Allen, in an article entitled "The Fine Flower
of Celticism": — "Miss Fiona Macleod's second book, 'The
Mountain Lovers,' fully justifies the opinions already formed of
her exquisite handicraft. . . . Her vocabulary, in particular, is
astonishing in its range, its richness, and its magic : she seems
to employ every beautiful word in the English language with
instinctive grace and sense of fitness. . . . The tragic episode
of the blind father's death is Homeric in its fierce mixture of
terror and wonder ; and the fate of Sorcha, the mountain maid,
is daintily touched with a hand of infinite pathos. ... It is
this strange, wild atmosphere of surviving and highly poetical
Celtic heathendom that gives the story its chief living charm."
Mr H. D. Traill, in the Graphic : — " Those who read Miss
Fiona Macleod's ' Pharais,' with the delight and admiration
which it should have awakened, will renew that experience with
' The Mountain Lovers.' Of the two, indeed, it is the finer
book ; for the story is stronger, and the characterisation subtler,
than in ' Pharais.' Its opening chapters, it is true, inspire a
momentary fear that the writer's remarkable gift of style is
becoming a snare to her, and that her passion for the mot propre
is luring her into the paths of ' preciosity.' But when the passion
of her weird romance, and of the haunted scenery amid which it
is cast, fairly takes hold of her, afiectation is cast out, and her
voice is again what it was in ' Pharais ' — the voice of a true-bom
Child of the Mist — thrilling through and through with the spirit
of her wild island home. The fascination of ' atmosphere ' in all
Miss Macleod's work is extraordinary."
Mr AsHCROFT Noble, in The New A^e, says :—" When I
say that the ' Mountain Lovers,' by Miss Fiona Macleod, is a
beautiful book, I use no indeterminate epithet of lazy euloj^y, but
the only epithet which really defines the peculiar quality of its
wonderful charm. . . . Only in such verse as that of Mr VV. B.
Yeats, such prose as that of Miss Fiona Macleod, do we find the
true revival of the Celtic feeling and the Celtic vision. . . . The
landscape, and the men and women who move through it — Oona,
a Celtic Mignon ; Nial, the misshapen dwarf, seeking for his lost
soul ; Torcall Cameron, in his loneliness on lolair ; and Anabal
Gilchrist, in her loneliness on Tornideon ; Alan and Sorcha, the
mountain lovers, ' sole sitting on the shores of old romance ' — all
live in an atmosphere of glamour, the breathing of which per-
forms the true office of the imagination in emancipating us from
the tyranny of the actual, and transporting us to a new and
beautiful enchanted ground. There are one or two situations of
wonderfully strong, human, dramatic interest ; indeed, I can re-
member few things in romantic fiction which have a more curious
imaginative effect than the strange fateful meeting, after years of
alienation, of Torcall and Anabal ; but it is, I think, the singu-
larly intimate rendering of the finer and more subtle impressions
of nature, both sensuous and spiritual, which gives to Miss
Macleod's beautiful work its peculiar charm. ... It is the
work of a Celtic de la Motte Fouque, with a something added
that was not among the great gifts even of the author of
* Sintram ' and ' Undine.' "
Mr Richard Le Gallienne in The Siar:—'^ . . . Striking
and fascinating, and the telling of it is full of the true * Glamour
of the Celt.'"
The Daily News: — "A volume instinct with Celtic genius,
... an idyllic background to the working out of an implacable
fate. . . . The little child Oona must rank among the most
fascinating children of literature."
The Liverpool Mercury : — "To say that this is a prose-poem
of very high and rare quality is by no means to exaggerate.
The tale itself is one of mountain life, penetrated with old
Gaelic superstition and gloom, strangely mingled with the ' new '
wisdom of Christianity. Its chief and most wonderful charm,
however, is its wood magic."
The Glasgow Herald: — " WTiat one remembers most of al!
after a first reading of the book in which it is narrated, is the
Celtic air, the glamour of the Highland twilight, the rare, rosy
hues of an Ossianic sunset, that suffuses the whole book with
an unique beauty. No one has ever written of the Scottish
Highlands with more insight, more sympathy, or more tender-
ness than Miss Macleod in this new volume, as well as in
her charming ' Pharais.' She has here achieved a stronger piece
of work than in ' Pharais,' and has touched more complex, more
tragic chords, with full harmony."
The World : — " Miss Macleod made so marked an impression
by ' Pharais,' her first romance, which was hailed as a valuable
contribution to Celtic literature, that more than common interest
attaches to her new work, 'The Mountain Lovers.' This will
fully sustain the appreciation which the writer's remarkable but
sombre imaginative powers have won."
The Saturday Review: — "From Nial the soulless, with his
hopeless quest and wild songs and incantations, to sweet Sorcha,
who dies of the dream in her eyes, these mountain-folk have
charm to set one musing. The book is uncanny, impossible,
and altogether fascinating."
The Literary World: — " We eagerly devour page after page ;
we are taken captive by the speed and poetry of the book ; we
are under the enchantment of the Celtic spirit."
The National Observer: — "Primitive instincts and passions,
primitive superstitions and faiths are depicted with a passionate
sympathy that acts upon us as an irresistible charm. We are
snatched, as it were, from ' the world of all of us ' to a world of
magic and mystery, where man is intimately associated with the
vast elemental forces of nature."
FORTHCOMING BOOKS
TO HE rUBLISHED SHOK TI.Y i;V
Messrs Patrick Geddes & Colleagues
\V. H. Whitb & Co., Edinburgh Riverside Press,
Distributing; Agents for the Publishers.
LYRA CELTICA.
An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry, from the
ancient Irish, Alban-Gaelic, Breton, and Cymric Poets to
the youngest Scottish and Irish Celtic Poets of To-day.
Edited by Mrs William Sharp. With an Introductory
Note on the Celtic Renascence by Willlvm Sharp.
To be issued at 5s. nett. Cr. 8vo. (With Celtic Cover
design by Miss IIi:li:n Hay.)
A NORTHERN COLLEGE; An Experimental Study
in Higher Education.
By Professor Patrick Geddbs.
This little book (illustrated) opens with an account of
University Hall, Edinburgh, and narrates what has been
done during the last nine years. It is also, however, of
more general interest as an Experimental Study in Higher
Education.
THE IDEALS OF ART: Critical Essays and
Addresses.
By William Sharp.
This volume will in part consist of the Lectures on
"Life and Art" which Mr William Sharp delivered at
University Hall, Edinburgh, in the Summer Session 1895.
THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS.
By J. Arthur Thomson, author of Shidy of Animal
Life, co-author of The Evolution of Sex. It is possible
that this important work, upon which Mr Thomson has
long been engaged, may be preceded by a Study in Con-
temporary Biology (Function: Environment: Heredit)')-
LIFE OF JAMES CROLL.
By J. Campbell Irons.
A life of an eminent, though not adequately-known,
Geologist, which has long been desired by all students of
Geology.
FICTION, &c.
THE WASHER OF THE FORD: and other
Legendary Moralities.
By Fiona Macleod, author of Pharais, The
Mountain Lovers, The Sin-Eater : and other
Stories.
This new volume by Miss Macleod, to be published
early in 1896, consists of Celtic Tales and Episodes, based
upon surviving legendary lore, which deal with strange
phases of past and present Celtic life and fantasy, Pagan
and Christian. A section of the book resembles, in kind,
the episodical story of St Bridget, " Muime Chriosd "
(based on ancient and still current legends), which appears
in the Autumn Part (Vol. ii.) of The Evergreen.
And other Volumes, in preparation, by Mrs Mona Caird,
Elspeth H. Barzia, and other writers.
Also the First Issue of a Xew Series of Scientific Romances.
{Particulars later.)
THE EVERGREEN
A NORTHERN SEASONAL
VOL. II. -THE BOOK OF AUTUMN
JVice js.
CONTENTS.
I. Antiiinn ill Nature —
J. Arthur Tho.msox
The Biology of Aulumn
ROS.-\ MUI.HOl.I.AND
Under a Purple Cloud
II. Autumn in Life —
P.\TRICK GeDDES
The Sociology of Aulumn
Sir Noel Pato.n
The Plammerer
Marg.\ret Armour
Love shall Stay
Sir George Douglas
Cobweb Hall : a Story
William Macdonald
Maya
in. Autumn in the World —
Elisee Reclus
La Cite du Bon-Accord
S. K. Crockett
The Song of Life's Fine
Flower
C. Van Leruerghe
Comers in the Night : a
Drama
The Abbe Klein
Le Dileltantisme
Edith Wi.ngate Kinder
Amel and Penhor
IV. Autumn in the North —
Willia.m Sharp
The Ilill-Water
John M'Leay
The Smelling of the Snow
Sir Noel Paton
In Shadowland
Fiona Macleod
Muime Chriosd: a
Legendary Romance
And Thirteen Full-page Drawings by Robert Burns, Ja.mes
Cadenhead, John Duncan, Helen Hay, E. A.
Hornel, Pittendrigh Macgillivray, C. H. Mackie,
and A. G. Sinclair.
Head and Tail Pieces, after the manner of Celtic Ornament,
drawn and designed in the Old Edinburgh Art School.
Printing by Messrs Constable of Edinburgh. Coloured
Cover, fashioned in Leather, by C. H. Mackie.
The First Series of The Evergreen will consist of Four Parts :
The Book of Spring (April 1895); The Book of Autumn
(September 1895) ; The Book of Summer (May 1896) ; The
Book of Winter (November 1896).
PART I.— THE BOOK OF SPRING
CONTENTS
Proem, . J. Arthur
I. Spring hi Nature —
W. Macdoxald
A Procession of Causes
J. Arthur Thomson
Germinal, Floreal,
Prairial
Patrick Geddes
Life and its Science
Hugo Laubach
Old English Spring
W. G. Burn-Murdoch
Lengthening Days
Fiona Macleod
Day and Night
H. Spring in Life —
Hugo Laubach
A Carol of Youth
Pittendrigh Macgilli vray
Ane Playnt of Luve
Gabriel Setoun
The Crows ; Four Easter
Letters
Riccardo Stephens
My Sweetheart
J. J. Henderson
The Return
Thomson and W. Macdonald.
HL Spring in the World —
Dorothy Herbertson
Spring in Languedoc
Victor V. Branford
Awakenings in History
W. Macdonald
Junge Leiden
Charles Sarolea
La Litterature Nouvelle
en France
IV. Spring in the North —
Fiona Macleod
The Bandruidh
Fiona Macleod
The Anointed Man
William Sharp
The Norland Wind
Alexander Carmichael
The Land of Lome
John Geddie
Gledha's Wooing
Gabriel Setoun
An Evening in June
A. J. Herbertson
Northern Springtime
Patrick Geddes
The Scots Renascence
And Thirteen Full-page Drawings by W. G. Burn-Murdoch,
R. Burns, James Cadenhead, John Duncan, Helen
Hay, p. Macgillivray, C. H. Mackie, Paul Serusier,
W. Walls.
REPRESENTATIVE PRESS OPINIONS.
"It is the first serious attempt we have seen on the part of
genius and enthusiasm hand-in-hand to combat avowedly and
persistently the decadent spirit which we have felt to be over
aggressive of late. . . . We have in this first number of The
Evergieen some score of articles, sketches, and tales, written
round Spring and its synonyms — youth, awakenings, renascence,
and the like — whether in human or animal life, in nations, in
history, or in literature. And the result is a very wonderful
whole, such as has probably never been seen before under
similar conditions. It is an anthology rather than a symposium,
and not only its intention but its execution makes its worthy to
be read by all who pretend to follow the literary movements of
our time." — Sunday Times.
"The first of four quarto volumes, devoted to the seasons, is a
very original adventure in literature and art. It is bound in
roughly embossed leather, very delicately tinted. It is superbly
printed on fine paper, gilt edged over rubric at the top, and with
rough sides. ... A high standard of literarj' quality is main-
tained throughout."— j^zrw/w^-^rtw Post.
" Probably no attempt at renascence has ever been better
equipped than that undertaken 'in the Lawnmarket of Edin-
burgh by Patrick Geddes and Colleagues.' The Book of Spring
is altogether of the stuff bibliographical treasures are made of." —
Black and White.
" The Evergreen is unequalled as an artistic production, and
while the organ of a band of social reformers in one of the
poorest quarters of Edinburgh, it also touches an international
note, and holds up the spirit of the best ideals in literature and
art." — London.
" It is bad from cover to cover ; and even the covers are bad.
No mitigated condemnation will meet the circumstances of the
case." — Nature.
FRINTED 15Y W. H. WHITE AND CO.
EDINEURGH RIVERSIDE PRESS
aiNDJNQ «tCT. OCT 1 8 1082
i^OBARTS LlBRARlfi
DUE DATE
JUL 26 1990
PR ■
Sharp, William
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The sin- eater
S5
1895
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